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Comment Re:A monopoly is a monopoly (Score 1) 163

by qpeter (#30495556) Attached to: Mandatory Use of Open Standards In Hungary

A monopoly is a unfair advantage in the marketplace. A standard is an agreed-upon way to do a given thing. If all the players agree on how things will be done -- assuming they can act on those standards -- that *reduces* the likelihood of monopolies occurring, because the playing field is leveled.

Our problem is that all we had was a set of mandatory standards set by exclusively the government (not by a public process), and later we succeeded guarantee by law that these standards will and remain to be open: you can use them free from any restrictions and royalty. "our organisation managed to put through an ammendment to the electronic public services law. The strategy was to avoid obvious confrontation, instead of open standards the phrase "public benefit" was used. unfortunately some important aspects (like democratic creation and maintainance) were lost in translation. Anyhow this is a win, that all electronic interfaces to the public utilities will be freely and gratis accessible even by libre 3rd party tools. huzzah! ;)" It is still a managed by the government but not closed. I don't know what kind of animal is it: what do you think?
Government

Mandatory Use of Open Standards In Hungary 163

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the you'll-be-open-and-like-it dept.
qpeter writes "Hungarian Parliament has made the use of open standards mandatory by law in the intercommunication between public administration offices, public utility companies, citizens and voluntarily joining private companies, conducted via the central governmental system. The Open Standards Alliance initiating the amendment aims to promote the spread of monopoly-free markets that foster the development of interchangeable and interoperable products generated by open standards, and, consequently, broad competition markets, regardless of whether the IT systems of interconnecting organizations and individuals use open or closed source software. In the near future, in spite of EU tendencies the Alliance seeks to make its approach – interoperability based on publicly defined open standards – the EU norm under the Hungarian presidency of the European Union in 2011. To that end, it will promote public collaboration – possibly between every interested party, civil and political organization in the European Union. What do you think: what would be the best way to cooperate?"

Submission + - Mandatory use of open standards in Hungary (nyissz.hu)

Submitted by qpeter
qpeter writes: Hungarian Parliament has made the use of open standards mandatory by law in the intercommunication between public administration offices, public utility companies, citizens and voluntarily joining private companies, conducted via the central governmental system. The Open Standards Alliance initiating the amendment aims to promote the spread of monopoly-free markets that foster the development of interchangeable and interoperable products generated by open standards, and, consequently, broad competition markets, regardless of whether the IT systems of interconnecting organisations and individuals use open or closed source software. In the near future, in spite of EU tendencies the Alliance seeks to make its approach – interoperability based on publicly defined open standards – the EU norm under the Hungarian presidency of the European Union in 2011. To that end, it will promote public collaboration – possibly between every interested party, civil and political organisation in the European Union. What do you think: what would be the best way to cooperate?

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