What Happened at the Hearing for New Hampshire's Free Software Law? (concordmonitor.com) 58
What happened after a New Hampshire state representative proposed legislation either encouraging or requiring free software in much of the state government? The Concord Monitor writes, "It's been three decades since Linux launched the modern world of free, open-source software, but you'd hardly have known that at a state legislative hearing Tuesday.
One bill (HB 1273) from Eric Gallager, a Concord Democrat, is a sweeping effort that not only establishes a committee to study "replacing all proprietary software used by state agencies with free software" but also does such things as limit non-compete clauses that conflict with open-source development and forbid Javascript in state government websites. The other bill (HB 1581) from Lex Berezhny, a Grafton Republican, would reinstate a requirement that state agencies must use open-source software when it is "the most effective software solution." That requirement existed in state law from 2012 to 2018, he said.
Gallager said the two bills were developed separately. "The fact that you've got people in both parties thinking about this issue independently shows there is a wide range of support for it," he said.
The Executive Department and Administration committee sent both bills to subcommittee.
But what's interesting is the arguments that were made — both for and against: Tuesday's hearing drew the state's most prominent free software advocate, Jon Hall, a programmer whose legacy in the field dates back three decades... Among his arguments, Hall said that studies have shown that free and open-source software is cheaper in the long run than software from Microsoft or other vendors because you don't have to buy regular licenses or be forced into software upgrades or have to ditch equipment like printers because they are no longer supported. Even when free and open-source software has higher costs due to training, he said, those costs have benefits. "Where does the money that you spend go? You can send millions of dollars to Redmond (Washington, home of Microsoft) or Silicon Valley, or pay local software developers," Hall argued.
On the other hand, Denis Goulet, commissioner of the Department of Information Technology, said Gallager's bill would put large and hard-to-quantify costs onto the state. "It would take a year, two years, to figure out what it would cost" due to training on new systems, he told the committee. "It wouldn't be small." Goulet, who opposed Gallager's bill and did not speak on Berezhny's, said the state already uses open-source systems as appropriate, pointing to its web content management system.
"I estimate 85 percent of systems contained one or more open-source libraries," he said.
The lead developer and founder of Libreboot tweeted video of the hearing, where you can also hear the first opponent of the legislation — state representative Stephen Pearson.
Click here to read some of the highlights from Tuesday's hearing:
The first person to speak was an opponent of the legislation — state representative Stephen Pearson. Gallager said the two bills were developed separately. "The fact that you've got people in both parties thinking about this issue independently shows there is a wide range of support for it," he said.
The Executive Department and Administration committee sent both bills to subcommittee.
But what's interesting is the arguments that were made — both for and against: Tuesday's hearing drew the state's most prominent free software advocate, Jon Hall, a programmer whose legacy in the field dates back three decades... Among his arguments, Hall said that studies have shown that free and open-source software is cheaper in the long run than software from Microsoft or other vendors because you don't have to buy regular licenses or be forced into software upgrades or have to ditch equipment like printers because they are no longer supported. Even when free and open-source software has higher costs due to training, he said, those costs have benefits. "Where does the money that you spend go? You can send millions of dollars to Redmond (Washington, home of Microsoft) or Silicon Valley, or pay local software developers," Hall argued.
On the other hand, Denis Goulet, commissioner of the Department of Information Technology, said Gallager's bill would put large and hard-to-quantify costs onto the state. "It would take a year, two years, to figure out what it would cost" due to training on new systems, he told the committee. "It wouldn't be small." Goulet, who opposed Gallager's bill and did not speak on Berezhny's, said the state already uses open-source systems as appropriate, pointing to its web content management system.
"I estimate 85 percent of systems contained one or more open-source libraries," he said.
The lead developer and founder of Libreboot tweeted video of the hearing, where you can also hear the first opponent of the legislation — state representative Stephen Pearson.
Click here to read some of the highlights from Tuesday's hearing:
"Okay, so — [sighs] That's — That's a lot to absorb. The — when you're — [Sighs] I am not a — I am not a software guy. At all. So I'm gonna — I'm trying to navigate the road you're pavin' here in front of me. Um, one of the — one of the overwhelming functions of government is to collect data, right? We collect data on everything. So if I'm understanding you right here, you — you want to put into statute a preference to go towards open source or free software over something that's proprietary. That's — that becomes a preference in law. Am I understanding that right...?
"Okay, so — people make a lot of money developing software... If the state of New Hamsphire, as an example the Department of Safety, the Bureau of EMS, we'll use them as an example. They collect a tremendous amount of data. If they go into a — an open, or free software, who handles their tech support? Who handles their updates? Who handles their problems? 'Cause if you're not making money doing this, and there's no financial incentive, how is the government supposed to, after accepting what you're funnelling here, how are we supposed to rely on that pro-- that sort of, uh, service for a product that's free?"
[The representative was then informed by the bill's sponsor that companies like Red Hat sell free software for money or offer purchaseable support contracts, and "There are lots of big companies that do have profit incentives in making sure that free and open source software works because they use a lot of it on their backends too."]
When the bill's sponsor, representative Eric Gallager, was asked "What problem does this bill solve...?" he responded that without the bill, "Big tech companies that make proprietary software would be continued to be allowed to violate users' freedoms. There's a lot of anger — bipartisan anger — out there at big tech lately for being too powerful... [The bill] helps put the power back into the hands of the everyday users to use and modify software as they want to, rather than as the big tech companies tell them too."
Meanwhile, Commissioner Goulet tried to argue that the support of open source software "does not benefit from the economies of scale that a large commercial software company can achieve by supporting a large base," complaining that supporting open source software would require hiring more staff for implementation, support, and compliance.
Goulet also argued that in addition, "Software supply-chain exploits are increasingly being used by bad actors to successfully compromise systems. By inserting malicious code through the supply chain, users of the software may be vulnerable and not even know it. Commercial software companies have direct control over their supply chain, so have the ability to manage it. By definition the development of open source software exercises little or no control over who inserts code and what that code is."
"We learn about new vulnerabilities in open source software that is installed in our environement on a weekly basis — and that's no exaggeration. Since most of it is sourced from supported entities, we are receiving and installing patches versus coding the corrections ourselves — think labor costs — and even that is a resource challenge. Increasing our open source footprint would only exacerbate this problem. As an example, all of the web site defacements that have occurred on state web sites around the country — a majority have been accomplished by exploiting unpatched open source implementations.
"The new norm for ransomware is the perpetrators extract the data prior to ransoming it. This means the cybersecurity risks inherent with open source also become citizen data privacy risks."
"The state of New Hampshire is regularly audited for compliance to standards promulgated by the federal agencies we deal with to maintain services and funding streams to the state. A small percentage of open source products will meet those standards. So in general it's only appropriate to use open open source products when the use case is not dealing with regulated citizen data..."
Goulet also claimed that while the state can and has used open source software, "in most cases there's no open source product that will meet the requirements."
And here's how he described the aftermath of the log4j vulnerability. "Software companies that had been putting all these libraries in their products to save money are now going, 'Oh, gee,' you know, 'Now I have to--" They're all out there scrambling and spending a ton of money to make their customers whole. So whether that has a — a long-term impact on the open source community, I don't know, but I — I would suspect that it may. And we'll be tracking that and — and making recommendations through the IT council..."
Supporting the sending of the bill to the subcommittee, the chairman gave as one reason that "All this stuff is basically — If you were speaking Chinese, I would not understand substantially less."
The CEO of a New Hampshire tech company that works with free software and hardware later testified, calling some of the earlier remarks "inaccurate, misleading, and manipulative."
And also speaking in favor of the proposal was 71-year-old Jon Hall (described by the Concord Monitor as "the state's most prominent free software advocate.") Hall described himself as a professional programmer and person in the computing industry for over half a century. You can watch his testimony here.
Among other things, Hall brings up the 12 million systems still running Windows XP despite the fact that Microsoft has retired support altogether. Hall noted that Microsoft's newest operating sytsem Windows 11 won't even run on all the hardware currently in use. And finally Hall mocked Microsoft's proposed solution to that problem — that customers simply equip old hardware with Windows 10 — by suggesting Microsoft was saying Windows 10 would be supported "as long as the grass shall grow and the water shall flow." (Those were the same words U.S. president Jackson infamously used when assuring native Americans they would never again be removed from their land.)
Speaking to bugs found in open source code, Hall said he'd worked at companies like Digital Equipment Corporation that sell proprietary software where "the same things happen... However the difference between free software and proprietary software is that once the issue is understood, how long does it take that company to create that path which can then be applied to your closed source software? With open source software, typically the patch is created very fast, and can be applied to many different systems...."
"Please do not tell me that proprietary companies know what their programmers are doing. It doesn't work that way."
Sunk costs fallacy (Score:2)
can you name more?
There might be some subtle graft and corruption at play also (software contracts and the reps that are sent to secure them, being inside deals or nepotist placements).
Really, though, a well managed fleet of linux boxes would indeed save lots of money in the long run.
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If it really saved money, people would do it.
Big companies, governments, whatever. They're not stupid.
The fact that they don't use open software should tell you something.
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governments will always be reluctant to be forced to patch a product that is already labeled "finished" and at the end user level more so? They will have to develop the product themselves and compete with the now newer private sector. Sooo, now a law making them develop open source software? for other governments, for example?
Re: Sunk costs fallacy (Score:1)
Re: Sunk costs fallacy (Score:2)
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"Linux" louhched free software? (Score:5, Informative)
The Free Software Foundation, founded by Richard M. Stallman, founded the legal basis of free software used by the Linux kernel. Let's give credit where it is due.
Re:"Linux" louhched free software? (Score:5, Interesting)
While you are correct, before Linux Free Software was often seen as what the poors used because it was all they had access to. And there was some merit to that argument, because as good as e.g. gcc was even back then, the vendor compilers were conclusively better at producing performant binaries. Whether you were using IBM's compiler for POWER, or Sun's compiler for SPARC, or Intel's compiler for x86, gcc produced inferior binaries in all cases. And almost all of the assorted other gnu utilities were just copies of tools which already existed. But Linux is now the dominant operating system kernel. There is no kernel more popular than Linux on the planet. It conclusively proves that Free Software can be not only as good as proprietary, but better. Yes, there are other examples of high quality Free Software, but none of them are so dominant as Linux.
The rise of Linux also strongly boosted Free Software. You might point to BSD as a FOSS Unix which predates Linux, but a) it's not Free Software (It's Open Source, which is different though similar) and b) that only serves to prove the point, which is that the Free Software "version" dominated despite an earlier technical lead for the Open Source stuff. And BSD had its own compiler ("The Portable C Compiler [wikipedia.org]") until 4.4-BSD (the version which reached the masses) at which point it was superseded by... gcc.
So yes, the FSF launched Free Software, before Linux. But Linux is responsible in a very real way for Free Software's popularity.
Re: "Linux" louhched free software? (Score:2)
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Linux brought a working kernel, the missing critical component of the Free Software foundation's failed "HURD" operating system. The libc, or "glibc" was already working reasonably well, and provided the operating system framework to build up the other desired components like email with sendmail, DNS with bind, web services with apache, and SSH with openssh. HURD was never accepted despite it's earlier publication because the kernel wasn't stable, and because its filesystem was case insensitive, which drove
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You might point to BSD as a FOSS Unix which predates Linux, but a) it's not Free Software (It's Open Source, which is different though similar) and b) that only serves to prove the point, which is that the Free Software "version" dominated despite an earlier technical lead for the Open Source stuff.
That's just non-sensical. The "Free Software" vs "Open Source" debate has nothing to do with "free as in beer" as both of them meet that criteria. GPL (and related) licensed software ultimately became more popular than BSD (and related) licensed software because of the source distribution requirement--evolution of BSD licensed software happens only as a result of the good graces of anyone building upon it. GPL software's evolution is forced.
To your initial point, that spending money on software was someh
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That's just non-sensical.
What is? There are multiple claims in that paragraph.
The "Free Software" vs "Open Source" debate has nothing to do with "free as in beer"
Point to where I said otherwise.
GPL (and related) licensed software ultimately became more popular than BSD (and related) licensed software because of the source distribution requirement
Yes, that's true. I fail to see how that's a relevant response. I didn't talk about why, but rather about what.
To your initial point, that spending money on software was somehow seen as a status symbol that separated you from "the poors" I don't even begin to know where that idea comes from.
I explained that. Read before replying.
Re: "Linux" louhched free software? (Score:2)
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BSD is most certainly not a Free Software license. It's Open Source and typically free of cost, but not Free as in freedom.
Re: "Linux" louhched free software? (Score:2)
Free as in beer
Free as in speech
Free as in speech implies you can change it.
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"Free as in speech" is the common idiom used by the Free Software Foundation. But I didn't wish, at that moment, to get deeper into their politics, and tried to include the more general open source politics. The subtlety of the GPL's compulsion to make your source code changes available to those who've received your binaries is also its own political or even theological discussion. There are quite a few open source companies, not free software companies, who build on top of open source software and propriet
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BSD is most certainly not a Free Software license. It's Open Source and typically free of cost, but not Free as in freedom.
Even by FSF's own admission [gnu.org], BSD is "free software". And if, like any decent person's, your definition of "free" does not include "you're either with us or against us" assholery, it's much more free than GPL.
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The Free Software Foundation, founded by Richard M. Stallman, founded the legal basis of free software used by the Linux kernel. Let's give credit where it is due.
Who? Sorry, I thought you mentioned someone unpersoned. Be on guard comrade, that's thoughtcrime.
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"rms" was not "unpersoned". He resigned from the board for stepping in a political nightmare by commenting about age of consent laws during the Epstein scandal.
OK, the JavaScript rule is a bit overbearing (Score:4, Insightful)
21-W:5 Proprietary Software on State Websites. No person in the state of New Hampshire shall be required to allow the execution of proprietary javascript in their browser when visiting websites administered by the state of New Hampshire. The department of information technology shall verify that this is the case for each executive branch agency via the use of browser extensions of their choice that are designed to detect and block the execution of proprietary javascript in their browsers, and by confirming that no proprietary java script blocks the functioning of any third-party online archiving services that are attempting to archive state websites.
I hate JavaScript. However, even I concede, it makes life better. When used intelligently, DHTML and ajax make a page better, not to mention input validation. I'm not sure this clause is providing much value. They should have consulted with people who work in the industry. Also, from the actual text, they misspelled JavaScript....not too important, but kind of telling of the author (https://legiscan.com/NH/text/HB1273/2022 [legiscan.com]).
JavaScript is definitely abused, especially in popular frameworks. It solves a problem that was already solved in the case of most frameworks...ooh, you just did something in browser that was literally the fastest and most scalable component in the "ancient" server-side templating techniques...only now you made it less reliable...but hey, it's written in JavaScript now instead of server side templates....let us all pat ourselves on the back now!!!! JavaScript is most often a nuisance and a legitimate planet killer in all the wasted CPU cycles that require 100 function calls to dynamically render content that is fundamentally static & never changes and could have been done using 20 year old technology with 1/5 the file size and 1/10 of the overall load time...but hey, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
As much as I despise JavaScript abuse, a blanket statement like banning it is foolish. You can't legislate common sense or for JavaScript developers to design and engineer their pages sensibly. They'd rather chase fads than make their customers happy...but this is an HR issue, not a legal issue. No law can force every stage agency to sensibly design their web pages. This just creates very weird barriers and will end up being more destructive than all the JavaScript abuse I just complained about.
Want to make it handicapped accessible? State that.
Want to make it run on old browsers? State that.
JavaScript is a red herring. There are million better ways to do this.
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It's not about JavaScript, it's about proprietary software written in JavaScript. They also seem to be concerned about scripts that will frustrate tools designed to archive or otherwise access state websites, which is confusingly tied to proprietary software, when free software could just as easily be used to cause those sorts of problems.
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21-W:5 Proprietary Software on State Websites specifically says proprietary javascript - not all JavaScript, just proprietary. Nobody is proposing banning HTML5 or Ajax outright, simply that all the used JS should be open source. That's a perfectly acceptable and noble goal.
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What distinguishes "proprietary" JavaScript from any other kind? Does the bill define that term?
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"Also, from the actual text, they misspelled JavaScript"
They are referring to something different than JavaScript.
It's the letter of the law that's important, until the spirit of the law can prevail.
Re:OK, the JavaScript rule is a bit overbearing (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't say they can't use Javascript, just that it can't be essential for the functioning of the site. That is sensible IMHO.
Javascript can be useful for things like input validation, like you suggest, but it can also be a hindrance to people using accessibility tools like screen readers, or non-standard input devices. It also makes archival more difficult, which for state sites is very important.
Relying on Javascript also tends to break sites when the user has ad blockers and privacy enhancements enabled.
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I think what they really mean is "non-free JavaScript" as in it's obfuscated so that you cannot reuse the code or discover what it's actually doing to you.
I'm guessing the idea comes from something like this:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy... [gnu.org]
Well, good luck with that... (Score:3)
Legislating technology is to invite major problems. Want to know why health care billing and records interchange is still a mess. Well, HIPAA required the use of X12 *in the law* and of course, it is completely outdated now and requires (no surprise) expensive software to deal with.
Banning JavaScript from websites? So, make it impossible for to build web applications for use in state government. Good plan there. Well, is TypeScript okay? WASM?
Also, the argument that open source is cheaper because it doesn't require licenses ignores the fact that licensed software often earns those costs in terms of productivity. Also, it ignores the costs of disruption in terms of retraining or having to constantly train new people. Also, they don't track the loss of productivity dealing with gaps. It doesn't take much to make those Windows and Office licenses worth it. I don't want government wasting time and money dragging open source solutions across the line. If there is software that's good enough, it'll get used.
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> Legislating technology is to invite major problems
Permit me to point out the straw man argument here. There is already considerable legislation, and court rulings, on technology, Patent law, copyright law, trade secret law, and the DMCA restricting the breaking of DRM on software already exist.
? Banning JavaScript from websites?
There is no sign that anyone proposed this. Javascript has, however, been heartily abused. Do look at the Free Software Foundation's comments about JavaScript abuse, detailed at
Re:Well, good luck with that... (Score:4, Insightful)
> Legislating technology is to invite major problems
Permit me to point out the straw man argument here. There is already considerable legislation, and court rulings, on technology, Patent law, copyright law, trade secret law, and the DMCA restricting the breaking of DRM on software already exist.
True, but providing a legal framework for ownership is different than requiring the use of a specific class of software. While the intentions may be admirable, there are real problems I see with the proposed law:
It requires companies provide access to proprietary code in the case of criminal trials. I suspect companies will fight that, and depending on how long it takes a criminal defendant should be able to argue the case should be dismissed since NH is unable to provide the defense with legally required information. In addition, who is responsible for providing the cost? If Company B provides a product that incorporates Company A's code, does company A have to provide it?
There are real costs with switching. If you are forced to convert and no comparable product exists you have to develop your own. Beyond development, that requires testing, training, etc. Just developing a decent set of specifications takes time and can be expensive.
There are data issues that need to be resolved. How do you handle data conversion? If your system exchange data with non-NH government systems, you need to be sure the connections still work properly whee you replace working ones with new ones.
There still are costs with maintaining the code base. It's not like free software is zero cost.
What is free software? GPL? BSD? Some other license? It would appear, based on the bill text:
I. "Free software" means software that gives users the freedom to run the program, to study and change the program in source code form, to redistribute exact copies, and to distribute modified versions.
II. "Copyleft" means the practice of using copyright law to ensure that any free intellectual property, in particular free software, remains free even after redistribution, modification, and use. A "copyleft software license" is a license designed specifically to facilitate the use of copyright in this way. A "copyleft free software project" is a collaborative project with the aim of developing software with such a license.
that a BSD license would be acceptable since modifications would not necessarily be "free intellectual property." They've used the term "copyleft" without requiring such licenses.
Finally, the bill states
No agency shall purchase machinery, computing hardware, or robots that require proprietary software unless the agency, in consultation with the department, determines that no viable alternative is available.
Does that mean every car, computer, telephone or any other piece of "machinery" require approval?
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Banning JavaScript from websites? So, make it impossible for to build web applications for use in state government.
Don't be a Drama Queen, or a technological illiterate. There is absolutely nothing about Javascript which is required to make even a modern website. The usual argument as to why it's necessary is form validation, but that's stupid and wrong. First, CSS now has form validation features built in. Second, it was always possible to simply fall back to a simpler model if the user had disabled Javascript.
For example Drupal, for all its failings, makes fallback seamless. If you have Javascript enabled it will be a
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Legislating technology is to invite major problems. Want to know why health care billing and records interchange is still a mess. Well, HIPAA required the use of X12 *in the law* and of course, it is completely outdated now and requires (no surprise) expensive software to deal with.
The problem with X12 is not whether it's out of date, required by law or not. The problem is that the documentation required to implement it is very expensive. I wanted to implement electronic forms entry for my wife (a provider in private practice) and could do it without difficulty (experienced in everything from FORTRAN, COBOL modern Python3 asyncio, in addition to embedded).
What stopped me was the fact that the X12 docs which have not been revised in decades, and whose design/development costs were amor
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Any "standard" incorporated into legislation by reference ought be be public domain, both the plain text, and any figures, diagrams, tables, etc. required to interpret the text.. Re-reimburse the authors via eminent domain proceedings either lump sum or per expected user, but the whole "private standard" thing is complete BS.
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>disruption in terms of retraining or having to constantly train new people
Ya, tell that to the short windows upgrade cycles, or you pay through the nose for LTS. A sensible open source approach lets you control the upgrade cycle, and support applications in the long term.
The real issue is that it takes a different approach. You need to hire high-skill programmers and managers to work for the state. And it's not just a take this off the shelf and use it approach. You really do need to examine the supply
Speaking Chinese (Score:4, Insightful)
"All this stuff is basically â" If you were speaking Chinese, I would not understand substantially less."
Since this chap has admitted that he doesn't have the background or education to understand this discussion he and any others who are in the same situation should immediately recuse themselves from the deliberations and decision making around this issue.
They won't, of course, but in a perfect world that's what should happen.
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It sounds like you're an idealist who thinks that all decisions should be deferred till you know all of the facts. The world however isn't perfect, and there are plenty of times that decisions needs to be made with imperfect information, both inadequacies in the people making the decision, and inadequacies in available information. In such a situation, it's normally best to be conservative with decisions you make, so that the implications will hopefully not be too painful if things turn out not to meet your
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The world however isn't perfect, and there are plenty of times that decisions needs to be made with imperfect information, both inadequacies in the people making the decision, and inadequacies in available information.
Yes, but when it comes to technical things, there are way too many people who will say "I'm not a computer person" and act as though such an excuse absolve them from any need to even attempt to understand the broad strokes or take notes regarding "what to Google when you get home". This seems to be exactly what is happening here.
Sometimes, yes, we're stuck going with our best guess...but the synopsis provided made it sound like the individual in charge of making the decision sat through an hour or two of Ch
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Agreed, there's too much of that sort of behaviour. It should change, the last generation that can honestly know nothing about tech in any capacity is diminishing in size and responsibility. As you say, we've had a fair few dubious laws passed with unpleasant side-effects and we can do with less of these going forward. I'm an optimist :)
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I don't know how it works everywhere but for the places I have worked and the practices I have seen, there is a requirement to get approval in place before any open source code is pulled into the codebase.
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"Any open source code"...
You have approval for version 5.1.222.3 of open source tool AlphaDog.
Does this means your automagically deploy 5.1.222.3b?
Does this mean you automagically deploy 5.1.222.4?
Does this mean you automagically deploy (as seen the week before) the 6.6.6 version?
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The instance I have seen gives approval for specific versions only to as to avoid any problems.
Proprietary javascript? (Score:2)
What is that - are they talking about the software license it's published under?
Establish a committee to study... (Score:2)
Re: Establish a committee to study... (Score:3)
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Hopefully they aren't sending this guy https://upload.wikimedia.org/w... [wikimedia.org]
Free Software Mandate? Seems silly. (Score:2)
To me that belongs as a guideline to be considered in the final downselect - it should not be a strict requirement.
Support (Score:2)
The anti-free software guy asked who will provide support.
Answer: I WILL PROVIDE SUPPORT.
All you got to do is pay me for it. Just like you pay the guy that made the proprietary software. Difference is, if my prices are too high, you can go to someone else. Can't do that with the proprietary software because they lock you into a support contract when they sell it to you.
Just because you are not buying the software does not mean you can't pay for support.
Note, he started by saying he was not a software
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Since when does proprietary... (Score:1)
My experience is that open source apps do the same or better job as proprietary apps do.
Yet, because they are not so pervasive in the market, folks need a little training.
Point is, there's training needed for most jobs anyway. Why not use the platform that makes the most efficient sense?
Hey, NH: Change your state motto (Score:1)
"Thank you Mr. Gates, may I have another?"