Why Open Standards Matter 158
Tina Gasperson over at Newsforge (Also owned by VA Software) has an interesting writeup about her experience at the Government Day sub-conference at LinuxWorld Boston. Government Day addressed some interesting issues including some of the more tangible reasons behind supporting open standards. From the article: "Speaking to the audience of government workers, Villa said, 'Maybe 2006 is not the year that Linux ends up on your desktops.' But, he encouraged them, if they begin using software that supports open standards now, such as Firefox and OpenOffice.org, then when Linux is ready it will be that much easier to make a switch. 'And maybe you'll decide not to make that switch,' Villa said. 'But at least the choice will be yours.'"
About Open standards (Score:0, Insightful)
Although most all operating environments have open source projects, open source is particularly common in the Unix/Linux/Java world; for example, the Apache Web server, sendmail mail server and JBoss application server. The Netscape Web browser was also turned into open source in 1998 and later released as the Mozilla browser for Windows, Linux and Mac (see Mozilla).
Peer Review
Open source developers claim that a broad group of programmers produces a more useful and more bug-free product. The primary reason is that more people are constantly reviewing the code. This "peer review," where another programmer examines the code of the original programmer, is a natural byproduct of open source. Peer review is an important safeguard against poorly written code.
Vendors of proprietary software counter by saying that "too many cooks spoil the broth!" They say that having complete control over software ultimately results in better products.
flist
Getting the point across (Score:3, Insightful)
author mistaken? (Score:5, Insightful)
We use Open standards very much in our everyday life dont
we?
HTML, TCP/IP, GSM, PCI , XMPP ( jabber, google talk ).. etc. etc.
When you're ahead... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course "open source" can hardly be defined as a company.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:author mistaken? (Score:4, Insightful)
Word, ppt, excel, smb, quicken, asf, wmv
Re:author mistaken? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:author mistaken? (Score:5, Insightful)
We use Open standards very much in our everyday life dont we?
Word, ppt, excel, smb, quicken, asf, wmv
Even more interesting: compare which of the above said standards actually fostered growth in technology and paved new ways of doing business:
The first set brought everyone the web, the internet, mobile phones, a plethora of choices for expansion cards, etc... all going down price-wise. Alot of opportunities of doing business also.
The second ones, well... made us have to pick certain platforms/vendors to be relevant... I don't know about everyone else, but over here the price of windows or Office is not going down! Magic food indeed.
Re:Getting the point across (Score:3, Insightful)
Your heart is in the right place, but this doesn't strike me as a great example just on the grounds that somebody (like me..) would go "huh? Betamax works on all betamax players!" A better example would be one that most people would have dealt with at one time or another. "Have you ever tried to get your check-engine diagnosed outside of your dealer?" Or: "Have you ever tried to use your old cell phone with your new provider?" Okay, admittedly I haven't hit the PERFECT example, but in those cases anybody who has answered yes to those questions would have a lightbulb appear over their heads.
Anyway, this isn't a rebuttal, just a suggestion of a better example. I was a little lost the first time I read your post.
Re:Getting the point across (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:When you're ahead... (Score:5, Insightful)
And of course there are branches (like where I'm in) where things are mostly secret and the actual cost of internal development is lower than the cost of leaking information (which could just be a way of doing things).
I think in the end it mostly depends on the type of business you're in.
Re:author mistaken? (Score:4, Insightful)
It is A standard. Not an open one with the full meaning of the word open. Can I make a GPL application that will legally play wmv files? Can I make a closed source freeware application that can play wmv files without paying a royality to microsoft? I would happily admit I am wrong if you provide me links to the opposite...
False dichotomy (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Maybe not this year... (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft's entire business model revolves around making new versions of Office that are incompatible with previous versions, giving a few copies away for free, and thereby forcing everyone else to upgrade in order to read the files their friends have sent them. Really, it's just a form of built-in obsolescence
Open Standards...nothing new (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is that we sit here and beat our drums, but someone comes along and says "when Linux is ready..."
Last I heard there were many organizations (Government, etc.) already using Linux on the desktop. I'm sure they will tell you it is ready.
Re:Starts with DRM (Score:4, Insightful)
You seem to be forgetting option C), namely "or not upgrade their OS at all".
Gvt and Open Standards (Score:1, Insightful)
What the government needs are laws or mandates for open formats whenever possible for government and government contractor created documents for several reasons including the need for retention, ownership by the people of the country, and access by its citizens. It's the people's data and should not be restricted by a closed format or incure cost by the people to access their own material.
In short.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:When you're ahead... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Getting the point across (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Starts with DRM (Score:4, Insightful)
I can run Windows programs all the way down to ones made for Windows 3.1 on XP. Microsoft puts a lot of stock into backwards compatibility. Perhaps you should rethink that statement?
Re:author mistaken? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:best reason to use open standards... (Score:2, Insightful)
I wish I could suggest a better approach, but the thing is, it's really just a technical issue. It has social ramifications, but mainly for technical folks. There's very little reason for mainstream users to care. All that can be done is some vague handwaving about rights and freedoms that typical users are in no position to exercise.
Possibly the best route to take is cost, but for most people the cost of software isn't really that onerous. A few hundred dollars a year isn't terribly out of line for the provided benefit.
"When Linux is ready" (Score:3, Insightful)
Could the author explain why Linux isn't ready for office use? In my opinion it's been "ready" for several years, and only getting better. (And no snarky comments about lack of games, that doesn't apply to an office environment)
All of this is rather silly (Score:3, Insightful)
Open Office is improving all the time, some of the components(I only really use word processing) are almost as good as the Microsoft equivilants. The document format is standard and can be replicated by any application which wants to do so.
However, it hasn't been, you can't just open an Open Office document, you have to install Open or Star Office, or possibly some other freeware application. Most specifically you can't open an Open Office document in Microsoft Office, which, no matter how much you dislike it, is the defacto industry standard.
If you send someone a word document, they will have something which can open it, and if they do any document editing at all, they'll be able to work with it and change it. If you send them an OpenOffice document, odds are they won't be able to open it. The purpose of these sorts of files is to store and transfer data, if the person I'm sending that document to can't open it, then it doesn't matter whether the file is open or closed, because it has no practical purpose.
You can argue about the value of open standards till you're blue in the face, but if everyone can't open it without substantial effort(downloading a 100 meg file is substantial effort), if they can't edit it without substantial effort, then it doesn't have any value at all.
You could design a language which was perfect, which had no exceptions to rules, which allowed for no ambiguity or misunderstanding, which was, in every way you can measure such a thing, perfect, but if no one speaks it it doesn't make any difference at all.
Re:Open Standards Do Not Matter (Score:2, Insightful)
JPEG? (Okay, I'll admit that I ought to convert the NEFs for storage one of these days.)
None of the recordings of the band you played in when you were younger will be listenable.
CDDA? MP3?
Business letters written just a few years ago won't be readable.
Okay, I'll give you DOC.
Open standards (or at least easily-licensed enough standards to be on a par with open) are nearly ubiquitous, and widely supported for both reading and writing. With the fact that these formats are open and digital (allowing lossless medium-to-medium copy), anyone who puts forth even a minimal effort to, say, drop all the CD-ROM backups onto whatever nails shut CD-ROM's coffin, there's no reason why most of today's content can't live on far into the future.
Aside from the