On Thu, 2005-09-22 at 21:55 +0800, Yusseri Yusoff wrote: > Who are you? Can someone else apart from the CompTIA guy and Microsoft stand > up and be counted please. Same with the BSA guys. Who are you? Stand up > please. Heh, I see you have the same good friends as me. :) "Who are you?" BSA - is not a transparent agency. In fact they do not even disclose their sources of funding or operations. MS - Is a company? It's pretty arrogant of a company to tell a sovereign country directly/indirectly what they should do. And why are all their responses verbatim copies right down to the . on key statements? Most importantly, where are the Malaysian businesses? As a Malaysian, I feel insulted that our Govt IT policy is being lobbied by foreign companies who think they know what's good for us, while raking in billions in revenue. If you haven't realised it yet, this is why free as in freedom is important. When you use FOSS, they can no longer tell us what our government and the people of Malaysia can and cannot do with our computers and ICT industry. When they say open standards, it won't be "open". Their acceptable definition is one in which control will still be in the hands of a single vendor who insists on the right to revoke royalty free licensing and use (RAND). "The BSA said that this definition of open standards – namely the requirement that a standard be irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis and the obligation for licenses to be irrevocable and impose no constraints on re-use of the standard – “is inconsistent in important respects with the policies and practices of many major international standards bodies” - http://europa.eu.int/idabc/en/document/4018 What's open about and "open standards" for which a company/group of companies can charge licensing fees and place constraints on usage? That's a closed standard to me. Disgusted with their arrogance. Stop using their software and show them that we can make them irrelevant. If you haven't already, inform your family and friends, your co-workers and your community.
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