FC: Bush administration's position on open-source seems... flexible

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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Subject: US Officially Opposing Open Source Internationally?
From: Steve Withers <swithers () mmp org nz>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
X-Mailer: Ximian Evolution 1.0.8 (1.0.8-10)
Date: 28 Jan 2003 13:27:53 +1300

Declan

I have not seen this in notes from Politech....and thought you might
find it interesting.

The question I have is: Since when is the US Government OFFICIALLY
opposed to the use and development of Open Source software around the
world? Millions of Americans use it and the idea of Open Source started
in the US.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/01/15/030115hnwsisos_1.html

The US was the only country attending the Tokyo conference to demand
this change from "support" of Open Source to the alternative presented
below.

Extract (partial):

TOKYO -- A three-day meeting that brought together Asian governments,
organizations, companies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) ended
Wednesday morning with the approval of a declaration that, among other
things, calls for encouraging the development of open-source software. A
draft of the declaration had called for open source to be "supported"
but was changed after objections from the U.S. government delegation
late Tuesday night.

 The U.S. opposition was largely perceived to be support for its
domestic software companies and in particular Microsoft, said officials
from other governments on the sidelines of the conference on Wednesday.
After a short debate with a number of countries, including Pakistan,
that wanted the original language to remain, all sides finally reached
agreement and the declaration was changed to read: "Development and
deployment of open-source software should be encouraged, as appropriate,
as should open standards for ICT (information and communications
technology) networking."

.....................


--
Steve Withers
swithers () mmp org nz




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