This is old news, but I wonder if people were aware of it at the time?:
http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/Blogs/Off-the-Beat-Bruce-Byfield-s- Blog/Norwegian-Free-Software-Center-Opposes-Government-Pro-FOSS-Policy
* Also sprach Sam Tuke samtuke@fsfe.org:
This is old news, but I wonder if people were aware of it at the time?:
http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/Blogs/Off-the-Beat-Bruce-Byfield-s- Blog/Norwegian-Free-Software-Center-Opposes-Government-Pro-FOSS-Policy
I have translated this article into English:
--- Preference Policy for Free Software? No Thank You!
Will there come a preference policy for free software? The Minister for Renewal has been challenged about this earlier. Her answer is that she has a pragmatic relationship with free software. Great - the Norwegian Competence Centre for Free Software does too.
In other words, we do not need a preference policy towards free software. Software is something we need not or should not be for or against. It is not a political matter one needs to consider, like [economical support for people deciding to be home with their children instead of sending them to kindergardens] or oil drilling. A preferential policy will mainly be about whether public enterprises should be required to choose free software over closed software.
Software development points in a direction of open solutions, shared development environments and healthy competition. Free software has a central place in all ICT (Information and communications technologies) developments, and is already a competitive direction for development. Qualitative and quantitative analysis indicates increased use and a multitude of solutions. Free software holds a significant position in Norwegian and global IT industry, and is delivered by many Norwegian consulting- and software development enterprises, as well as from global [mammothal companies]. Free software has become big business, and we would not have been witness to global successes such as Facebook or the Android[e] [sic!] mobile platform without open developent environments. The development model is open, but it is clear that there are large commercial interests behind it.
Free software is increasingly prefered in large mission-critical IT solutions. NAV (the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration), Bankenes betalingssentral (centralized management of payment transactions), Norwegian (airline), Statsbygg (governmental construction agency), Elkjøp (large electronics retailer), NSB (Norwegian railways), Statens Pensjonskasse (the Government's Pension Fund), Husbanken (the Governmental Housing Bank), Statens Kartverk (Norwegian Mapping and Cadastre Authority), DIFI (Agency for Public Management and eGovernment), Avinor (air control), Euronics (electronics retailer), Oslo Børs (stock exchange), Oslo kommune (municipality, capital city), Bærum kommune, Alta kommune og Asker kommune are just some of those who use solutions based soley or partially on free software. Free software is selected in tough competition with closed software, simply because it has a competitive advantage.
Free software will remain important for ICT development in the public sector in the years to come, but to require public enterprises and entities to use free software will not only be unnecessary, but also impossible to implement. If one were to put constraints on the choice of software to individual projects, this could also lead to the individual public entity could not choose the best solution. Increased use of free software is important for the development of ICT in public sector, but it must be based on the premise that free software is the best solution in competition to closed software. When we, [the Norwegian Competence Centre for Free Software], meet a public enterprise we ocus on that they should consider free software as an option in all their solutions. [But] free software must never be chosen at any cost. Only where it through consideration is deemed to be the best alternative.
Nevertheless, we call for a clear renewal policy, which includes sharing, reuse and openness. [The National Competence Centre for Free Software] recently conducted a survey of municipality politicans' attitudes toward IT as a strategic management tool. Not unexpectedly, this is a missing theme in the majority of Norwegian municipalities. [The Norwegian Association of Local and Reginal Authorities]' eMunicipality-survey [sic!] from May 2010 also shows that it is on track to develop A and B municipalites [here: refering to qualitative difference between municipalities] over who is able to provide efficent and good public services. And re-use of sector-specific software developed with public funds is virtually non-existent. Another negative trend is that large public enterprises with good expertise in greater respect than the smaller entities are able to make financial gains from the use of free software. This also applies to other areas of ICT such as architecture and security. Reuse, sharing is the key to close this gap.
In [the Norwegian Competence Centre for Free Software] get many inquiries from businesses that want information on free software. The trend is that requests go from focusing on what free software is, to specific requests related to the reuse of software between public enterprises. The need for information and good examples are increasing, and we see public institutions as pragmatic when choosing between free and closed software. But, of course, most public agencies use both closed and free software in their IT architecture. Apart from an increased demand related to free software, we see that the public sector cries out for a more comprehensive ICT investment from the central government. An ordinary municipality currently has between 1-3 employed in the ICT department, responsible for everything from operations to strategy. These activities are entirely dependent on a common ICT effort to close the gap between the small municipalities with poor economy and the larger, more resourceful municipalities.
Increased focus on common components, better coordination of government ICT investments and the total reorganization of municipal e-government are some of the measures we believe should be given priority in the years to come. In this work, open source software play a central role simply because the state though the development of common components must be especially aware of the danger that some suppliers have monopolies based on closed software. Free software will also be important to further develop a competitive Norwegian IT industry, which increases the communities economic growth. ---
Best regards,
Andreas Tolf Tolfsen translated:
If one were to put constraints on the choice of software to individual
projects,
this could also lead to the individual public entity could not choose
the best
solution. Increased use of free software is important for the
development of
ICT in public sector, but it must be based on the premise that free
software is
the best solution in competition to closed software....
This is a very strange point of view for an entity which calls itself a "Free Software Center". They don't seem to care about the philosophical advantages to free software, nor to the fact that entities which build on proprietary software compromise their infrastructure and places it in the hands of private vendors, but seems to think it's all about technical advantage.
Maybe they should change their name to the "Norwegian Open Source Center".
Carsten Agger wrote:
This is a very strange point of view for an entity which calls itself a "Free Software Center". They don't seem to care about the philosophical advantages to free software, nor to the fact that entities which build on proprietary software compromise their infrastructure and places it in the hands of private vendors, but seems to think it's all about technical advantage.
Maybe they should change their name to the "Norwegian Open Source Center".
I concur; the vague terminology ("call for a clear renewal policy, which includes sharing, reuse and openness"), declaring absent any evidence that software decisions are "not a political matter one needs to consider" (as opposed to political matters one should consider?), declaring that better software should be the primary determining factor, and no recognition that bad free software can be improved by all but proprietary software of any quality is only understood and improved by the proprietor -- all these things are strong tip-offs that the open source philosophy is at work here.
I wonder if this is a case where free software advocates have successfully explained the difference between the two movements to the point where proprietors now seek to either obscure that difference or co-opt the phrase "free software" to stand for the proprietor-friendly values of the open source movement?