Norwegian Free Software Center Opposes Government Pro FOSS Policy

[Alex Hudson]

On Mon, 2010-09-13 at 13:05 +0200, Carsten Agger wrote:
> You can say that proprietary software vendors will not let public
> entities control the software that runs in its infrastructure, and will
> not let them make necessary changes or enhancements themselves if the
> vendor is unwilling or unable to do so. It's not a question of
> hypocrisy, it is a demand for certain consumer rights.

That's a completely different thing. It's a standard part of many public
contracts I see.

However, the requirement for those rights isn't the same as gaining the
software under a free software license. You can have those rights
without the software being free.

Of course it would be possible to frame the requirements in such a way
that they indirectly exclude proprietary software, but that's still an
equally dodgy argument, and it's one that free software is currently on
the losing side of. Campaigning to get rid of these dodgy requirements
isn't helped by other people campaigning for equal but opposite dodgy
requirements to help exclude some part of the competition.

Thanks

Alex.


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