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[News] Professor Derek W Keats Explains Why FOSS and Standards Are Essential

Letter: Misunderstandings over open-source software harm local IT industry  

,----[ Quote ]
| Shuttleworth is of course part of the IT industry. His company, Canonical, is 
| a business based on FOSS. Canonical's revenue comes from implementing FOSS 
| business models. There are many other companies, including fairly substantial 
| multinationals, that use FOSS and hybrid FOSS/proprietary business models to 
| gain revenue. Among them are Sun Microsystems, IBM, Novell, Red Hat and 
| others.     
| 
| [...]
| 
| The minister talked about the need for open standards. Who would implement 
| such standards but the IT industry? The article presents the impression that 
| the minister's call for open standards is somehow against that very industry. 
| The article clearly sets up the notion of FOSS and open standards as being 
| anti-Microsoft, which is equally absurd. If the particular standard that is 
| at the heart of current debate is accepted, Microsoft will obviously be one 
| of its implementers because to do otherwise would be suicide.      
`----

http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=553&fArticleId=4337584

Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi apprently received rebuttals/smears for 'ruining' the
industry by supporting truly open standards (ODF) and opposing intellectual
monopolies. Where might /that/ have come from? "Open" and "open source"
meanwhile continue to get abused. Latest example:

How Open Source (Ideas) Can Win the War and Save the Auto Industry

,----[ Quote ]
| I am often dismayed by the misappropriation of the term open source. 
| Companies apply the term to products that are free though not open source. 
| It’s a classic marketing maneuver to leverage a brand that already has broad 
| recognition.   
| 
| A clothing company sent me a release not too many months ago about their new 
| open source clothing line. After close inspection they meant design your own 
| outfit from their catalog of designs that they owned. It wasn’t open source 
| but I recall a number of open source trade publications picking up the story. 
| Good marketing stunt but not accurate.    
`----

http://socializedsoftware.com/2008/04/06/how-open-source-ideas-can-win-the-war-and-save-the-auto-industry/


Related and recent:

SA minister slams software patents

,----[ Quote ]
| In a taped address for the Idlelo 3 conference, Fraser-Moleketi said 
| that “open standards are a critical factor in building interoperable systems 
| that are important to governments … In South African we have a document - the 
| minimum interoperability standards - which includes the use of open document 
| format or ODF.”    
| 
| Fraser-Moleketi pointed out that ODF was adopted as an ISO standard in 2006. 
| She said that it was “unfortunate that the leading vendor of proprietary 
| office software, which enjoys considerable dominance in the market, chose not 
| to participate and support ODF in its products but rather to develop its own 
| competing document standard, which is now also awaiting judgement in the ISO 
| process.     
`----

http://www.tectonic.co.za/?p=2304

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