[Gllug] open source centric ICT in Schools from Sept 2012 ?

[Philip Hands]

On Fri, 13 Jan 2012 11:01:09 +0000, Alain Williams <addw at phcomp.co.uk> wrote:
...
> I have always believed that open standards are much more important than
> open source[**]. If you have open standards (ie documentation good enough to
> allow independent implementation) that is freely available then you have
> the potential to stop one company (or cartel) from dominating.

Well, yes, except that OOXML's supposedly an open standard, if you ask
the BSA or ISO (as we both know to our cost ;-)

Not that anyone's actually bothered to implement that standard even
once, so as long as there are at least two properly independent
implementations, at least one of which was from the documentation,
rather than reverse engineered, then you're perhaps OK -- but really,
the only way you get really open standards is when one of the most
popular implementations is at least source-available, and not bound up
with patents.

>  Unfortunately: the concepts of Open Standards are harder to explain than
>  Open Source/Free Software.

I'd say they're almost on a par -- it's just that people seem willing to
_believe_ that they understand what Open Source is about earlier.

Cheers, Phil.
-- 
|)|  Philip Hands [+44 (0)20 8530 9560]    http://www.hands.com/
|-|  HANDS.COM Ltd.                    http://www.uk.debian.org/
|(|  10 Onslow Gardens, South Woodford, London  E18 1NE  ENGLAND
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