Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
> The trainwreck-waiting-to-happen that is UK government IT spending
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
>| Think about that. Think about what this means: eight vendors have a
>| tremendous amount of leverage over the taxpayers of the United Kingdom.
>|
>| [...]
>|
>| The UK, in other words, is a captive of its IT vendors. That is shockingly
>| wrong.
> `----
>
> http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13505_1-9777862-16.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=TheOpenRoad
Well, we already knew this, but it's good to see that others are
beginning to recognise the scale of this appalling problem.
>
> And underneath there are some stories about fraud and corruption.
>
> Open standards 'more important' than open source
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
>| Dr John Pugh MP, Liberal Democrat Shadow Spokesman for Health, told delegates
>| that there were good arguments for the use of open and closed source
>| software, but that there was "no defence against the use of open standards".
> `----
Unfortunately, people still think that there is a difference between the
two. There isn't, it's just that open-source greatly reduces the
chances of lock-in, by reducing ambiguity.
>
> http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2198637/open-standards-more-important-source
>
> Of course, National Archives, the British Library, and MSBBC all choose
> proprietary formats and Windows-only technology. These are owned by
> former/part-time Microsoft executives who ship taxpayers' money overseas.
The position is absurd, and really does need to be stopped. I think we
need a really good corruption clean-out to fix it, though.
>
>
> Related:
>
> BBC Corrupted
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
>| Today the BBC made it official -- they have been corrupted by Microsoft. With
>| today's launch of the iPlayer, the BBC Trust has failed in its most basic of
>| duties and handed over to Microsoft sole control of the on-line distribution
>| of BBC programming. From today, you will need to own a Microsoft operating
>| system to view BBC programming on the web. This is akin to saying you must
>| own a Sony TV set to watch BBC TV. And you must accept the Digital
>| Restrictions Management (DRM) that the iPlayer imposes. You simply cannot be
>| allowed to be in control of your computer according to the BBC.
> `----
>
> http://defectivebydesign.org/blog/BBCcorrupted
>
>
> The [UK] politics of open source
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
>| There's been a suggestion of a shift towards open source in the
>| houses of government in the UK recently, with the Conservative
>| Party promising to promote open source if elected and the incumbent
>| Labour Party releasing the code behind its new carbon footprint
>| calculator under the General Public License.
> `----
>
> http://www.businessreviewonline.com/os/archives/2007/07/the_politics_of.html
>
>
> Lessig: Required Reading: the next 10 years
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
>| Yet governments continue to push ahead with this idiot idea -- both Britain
>| and Japan for example are considering extending existing terms. Why?
>|
>| The answer is a kind of corruption of the political process. Or better,
>| a "corruption" of the political process. I don't mean corruption in the
>| simple sense of bribery. I mean "corruption" in the sense that the
>| system is so queered by the influence of money that it can't even get
>| an issue as simple and clear as term extension right.
> `----
>
> http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/003800.shtml#003800
>
>
> Governments slammed for anti-competitive software tendering practices
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
>| A leading Australian open source advocate has called for an end for to
>| tender lock-outs of competitors to Microsoft, claiming the practice
>| is costing Australian taxpayers tens of millions of dollars each
>| year.
> `----
>
> http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/11496/53/
>
>
> Open-source evolves from 'nerdy' to notable
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
>| Last January, Host Europe, a company that runs the Web sites for 120,000
>| businesses in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, secured an unlikely supplier
>| for the open-source software it uses to run almost all of its computer
>| servers.
>|
>| [...]
>|
>| "I think that the adoption of open source has been much greater in some
>| of the Continental markets and in the United States," said Mark Brier,
>| an open-source technician at the National Computing Center in
>| Manchester, England, a nonprofit group that advises government
>| on computer purchases. "Here there is no large-scale adoption."
>|
>| Scott Thompson, the executive director of OpenAdvantage, a
>| nonprofit group in Birmingham, England, that promotes open-source
>| software among businesses in the West Midlands region, said the
>| spread has been limited by outmoded government procurement rules
>| that favor larger, established proprietary vendors, government
>| outsourcing of technology operations to companies with relationships
>| to proprietary vendors, and the well-funded defense of proprietary
>| software makers.
> `----
>
> http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/03/technology/source02.php
--
| Mark Kent -- mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk |
| Cola faq: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/linux/advocacy/faq-and-primer/ |
| Cola trolls: http://colatrolls.blogspot.com/ |
| My (new) blog: http://www.thereisnomagic.org |
|
|
