[acquisitions-wg] FSF: EC caves in to proprietary lobbyists on interoperability

[David López]

With regards to interoperability in Europe please find attached the English
version of a Spanish law (2007) establishing a legal framework for
accessible, interoperable eServices in public administrations.

It is a long document but it contains important definitions of electronic
services as far as administrations and citizenship are concerned:

1- It defines what's considered as open standards (page 27).
2- It forces public administrations and large companies with relevant
services for the society (gas, power, telcos, ) to provision  interoperable
&& accessible services in the Internet.

Point 2 is paramount as it breaks vertical integration of components
(backend, middleware, frontend and user interface) thus creating new
market opportunities. For instance last summer it was not possible to
purchase a train ticket with Google Chrome, guess which browser was required
?


3- It raises telematic services to the same status as traditional channels
to conduct administrative processes (regular mail, fax, etc).

Point 3 gives citizens the right to use electronic services, again creating
market opportunities by forcing administrations to move on into the digital
era (and in doing so providing incentives for sofware companies and large
contractors to "go along")


In my humble opinion a market oriented approach focused on citizens' rights
is the way to go rather than enforcing interoperability (or any other
technical consideration) "per se".

Keeping the discourse in terms of citizens and our rights to speak
electronically no matter the gadget (expensive, cheap, adapted to my
cognitive abilites) is simple, straight to the point and above all it avoids
technical complexities which may not be properly understood by non-technical
people.

Some may claim that forcing administrations to adapt to a panoply of
potential means of access imposes huge economist costs, in this case the
option is simple:produce interoperable services and technologies ex-ante.


I hope it helps to start the discussion up.

Cheers

PD: This mail has been suggested by a friend of mine who prefers to remain
in the background (thanks him for the pointer) :)





On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 10:43 PM, Andy Oram <andyo at oreilly.com> wrote:

> I haven't seen the EC report that the FSF criticizes, but it seems like
> Europe took a small step backward:
>
> http://www.fsfe.org/news/2009/news-20091127-01.en.html
>
> Andy
>
> _______________________________________________
> acquisitions-wg mailing list
> acquisitions-wg at opensourceforamerica.org
> http://opensourceforamerica.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/acquisitions-wg
>
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