more on New USG Grant System Excludes Mac Users

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

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- -------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [IP] more on New USG Grant System Excludes Mac Users
Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2006 12:35:48 -0500
From: Daniel Weitzner <djweitzner () csail mit edu>
To: dave () farber net
CC: ip () v2 listbox com
References: <43F0BE1B.8060102 () farber net>

[for IP if you like]

Gene is, of course, correct. This is not the first time that the US
Government has tried to use common, but not standard technologies for
important government services. IPers may remember that in August 2005
the Copyright Office announced one of it's 'web-based' registration
systems would only work with Internet Explorer. A number of IT
groups, including W3C, sent comments complaining that this unfairly
excluded many users from a government benefit to which they are
entitled:

        http://www.w3.org/2005/08/22-w3c-prereg-standards-comments.html

Six months later we still haven't heard a response from the Copyright
Office.

Danny


On Feb 13, 2006, at 12:12 PM, Dave Farber wrote:

> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: [IP] more on New USG Grant System Excludes Mac Users
> Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2006 12:04:34 -0500
> From: Gene Spafford <spaf () cerias purdue edu>
> To: dave () farber net
> References: <43F0B795.40202 () farber net>
>
> The real problem, of course, is that the system was apparently never
> specified to be standards-compliant and vendor neutral.  If it was,
> then the program management has deviated from the specs.
>
> Scientists use Windows (certainly), but also Macs (OS 9 and OS X),
> Solaris, Linux (all 20 million versions :-), HP/UX, AIX, and more.
> The common thread is interoperable, vendor-neutral standards.
>
> I have often stated in interviews that "Common does not mean
> 'standard.' "   That there are more Windows machines out there does
> not mean that Windows is the standard.  If simple majority was the
> criterion on which to base an implementation, then they should have
> done the whole thing in Chinese as it is probably the most-used
> language in the world.  Not to be as pejorative as this sounds, I
> harken back to an article in the NY Times on 11/26/91 that had the
> following lovely quote about Microsoft products vs the Mac:
> "...cockroaches are far more numerous than humans, [but] ... numbers
> alone do not denote a higher life form."  Numbers alone do not tell
> the story that should be told!
>
> If the site had been developed to primarily work with Macs or VMS or
> DOS we should have been equally as outraged at the expenditure of
> public funds effectively endorsing one system; emulation for "second
> class" is not a solution.

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