Library of Congress's $3M Deal With Microsoft

Cory Doctorow sounds the alarm over a Library of Congress deal with Microsoft that will have collections locked up in Silverlight. I'll double the Microsoft deal and offer them $6M in perl scripts and an infinite value of free OS software if they let me (or Google or any other honest company) publish their collections in free formats. "This deal involves the donation of 'technology, services and funding' (e.g., mostly not money) with a purported value of $3M from Microsoft to the Library of Congress. The Library, in turn, agrees to put kiosks running Vista in the library and to use Microsoft Silverlight to 'help power the library's new Web site, www.myloc.gov.'"

Is the US government this poor?

[l2718]

Greanted, $3M is not petty cash, but surely that's the "sticker price" of the software to be installed (e.g. on the Vista kiosks), not the cost to Microsoft or the true cost after negotiations. So is LOC so cash-strapped that they can't afford to create their website without this ``donation'' ?

Locked up?

[Bryan Ischo]

Can someone explain to me where the term "locked up" applies to this news article? I read the (very brief) article linked to - and didn't see how anything in the library would become 'locked up', which I assume to mean, available only to people using Windows software. Yeah, they're going to accept some 'donations' of OS's and stuff (so Microsoft spends $10 burning a bunch of CDs and calls it a multi-million-dollar donation, with all the relevent tax perks as well - why does the government let them get away with this?) for their new kiosks (which if my experience with Windows kiosks is anything to go by, will be sitting at a blue screen or an empty Windows desktop 50% of the time), but how does this equal anything being 'locked up'?

Honest?

[Anonymous Coward]

So Google is deemed "honest" by virtue of simply NOT being Microsoft?

LOC website = horrible

[Raul654]

As I noted on Slashdot recently [slashdot.org], the library of congress website is possibly the most dysfunctional site on the internet. If you ever browse their collections, it's literally impossible to get a permanent URL (which makes it incredibly difficult to copy their public domain stuff to Wikipedia - all the URLs to confirm the copyright status break after an hour) What's even worse, it feels like somebody spent a lot of my taxpayer money to put together something that is functionally useless.

News story from January

[93 Escort Wagon]

I hate to pick on Slashdot (okay, no I don't) - but this was "news" back in mid-January [gcn.com].

I'll be curious to see how this plays out. Currently the LOC uses a lot of Flash. After reading the article (the one I linked above, not the non-informative blog post in this /. "story") it sounds like the LOC will be using Silverlight in a specific, probably limited, fashion. It'd be nice to get more information, though. From what little information is available, it's possible that MS proposed this as a new project - adding content, not replacing current LOC web materials.

In any case it seems like a silly thing to do unless there's something Silverlight does that Flash doesn't do (given that the LOC site already uses Flash). Plus Silverlight currently doesn't include accessibility support, which to my mind would make it a non-starter for a government website.

Accesibility Standards?

[Sweetwater]

I'm not sure about Silverlight's ability to conform to accessibility standards. Are not all American Government websites required to be accessible? I mean, I know a site can have different entry points for different browsers and accessibility levels, but doesn't this seem very counter productive?

Re:So?

[civilizedINTENSITY]

Bad publicity? Like when MS bought HotMail? Replaced the Free Software with their own stuff, and the site failed under the load? Not like this would be the first time, for sure...

Re:Another 50 Years

[Moonpie Madness]

SO TRUE!

I remember actually going to the library of congress, and they refused to allow me in. Why? Because I didn't actually have anything specific to research... I just wanted to check out what the library had to offer, browse around, read a book or two. Of course I waited five minutes and invented a research topic, but nonetheless it's absurd not to allow me, a taxpayer access to my library.

Bureaucracy.

Re:Honest?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that's an honest question. Google has not been "evil" to the extent that Microsoft has, but it seems like people here give them a free pass. Google benefits from and actively encourages domain parking, which I think most of us agree is one of the sleaziest "businesses" on the web. Again, that's nothing compared to what Microsoft has done, but that doesn't mean it's nothing.

Re:Money, bribery & Free software

[xant]

You bet. The minute he makes up his damn mind to run, I'm on the phone with my debit card out for a donation.

Re:where's the advantage?

[jlarocco]

Wow, I bet that's flying off the servers.

At the very least they seem to be missing the point of free software. IF you're going to restrict it that much, why fucking bother?

Silverlight and Firefox

[donatzsky]

Am I the only one that can't get Silverlight to work with Firefox on Windows? I have now tried on two different machines, several times, with the same result.

Re:Silverlight

[Stormwatch]

It's not as flashy as Flash. Frankly, I'd count that as a positive trait...

left hand good, right hand evil

[rgaginol]

What's really stupid about this is that Library of Congress, or at least a component within them, are seen to be a champion for open formats: http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/intro/intro.shtml/ [digitalpreservation.gov] (that's a Library of Congress site). They've got a $3 million dollar deal, but at the cost of a lot of credability in the archival community.

Re:sig line

[littlerubberfeet]

All American suck, because they let their government do idiotic things like only make data available in proprietary formats.

Seriously: Can we have the government define government-wide standards for data accessibility? No OOXML crap. We need real, open standards that any company can use and interface with. Perhaps all standards have to be ISO and Creative Commons/GPL licensed?

I'm sure Google, IBM, and a host of other companies would love it, especially if it aided prior-art research with the USPTO. If Microsoft tries to inject their semi-open crap, hopefully the other companies will pound it down.

Good for MSFT for donating much-needed equipment to the LOC, but they do more harm than good sometimes. Silverlight? Hopefully there is a simple HTML page I can use instead.

Silverlight and Accessibility

[xswl0931]

Silverlight, unlike Flash, is designed with full accessibility support including screen readers.