Norwegian Free Software Center Opposes Government Pro FOSS Policy

[Alex Hudson]

On Mon, 2010-09-13 at 10:58 +0100, Ciarán O'Riordan wrote:
> Possible connection, FWIW:
> 
> Bruce Perens also opposes pro-fs government policies:
> http://lwn.net/Articles/163077/
> "I still think that preference laws are the wrong way to go. [...] I keep
> thinking that the end still doesn't justify the means."

This isn't a hugely uncommon point of view, though - I think you're
possibly making a link too far.

Personally, I'm pretty much against them: you can't argue coherently and
simultaneously against the preference given to other platforms and for a
preference given to free software*; the basic principle is the same and
people will smell hypocrisy.

Cheers

Alex.

*. People love to fall back on "oh, free software is different because
it's ethical and stuff", but it's a poor argument. For some, the ethics
of public spending is you do as little as possible and get best value
possible: reducing it to an "ethical" argument fails because not
everyone's ethics are the same.


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