Free software and public administrations?

[Giovanni Biscuolo]

Il mar, 2002-11-26 alle 14:50, Anton Zinoviev ha scritto:
 
[...]
> Busyness oriented people often say "I am not a developer and I don't
> care about sources.

You should always care about sources, are the best guarantee you can
continue to use and (if needed) improve your software.

> I am not going to develop new software,
> I am only using what is currently offered to me.
> And I am also interested if
> this software is well supported.
> How long will continue this
> development?

The development of a free software application will go on as far as
there will be someone that will find it useful. If you find it useful,
you can go on developing it, or founding it's development.

> It can stop, can't it?

Yes, but it is more likely the case for proprietary software, not for
free software. Vendors dies, free software can survive.
There are plenty of examples of tecnically good proprietary software
that dies with their vendors or simply dismissed by them.

> I also need to be compatible with the others."

So let's start all using free software :-)... just a joke.

Maybe interoperability is better than "compatibility", anyway: have you
ever heard of Pubblic Administrations that where unable to use *their*
own data for other applications because the vendor refuses (or asks
absurd fees) to show them the data structure?
I heard.
With free software it is simply impossible, or in other words
interoperability is *always* possible.

[...]

Ciao.
Giovanni.
-- 
«Da quando ho letto che lo 0,34% degli australiani si professa della
 "religione dello Jedi" nulla riuscirà più a stupirmi.»
                                       [Andrea Rossato, 31 Agosto 2002]
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