Erwin's StarOffice Tango

Erwin's StarOffice Tango
Erwin Tenhumberg's Insights into Open Source and Dancing
... or why Open Competition matters

« "Integrate Firefox... | Main | OpenOffice.org at... »

Montag Juni 20, 2005

Definition about "open"
This is a very interesting blog entry:

"I'd go back to the "discussion" in "relative discussion" and say open is:

(1) the degree to which the discourse (or discussion) over the final result is public and,
(2) the degree to which that final result is then open to unencumbered use.

[...]

Why should IT buyers insist that their vendors comply with open specifications? Interoperability is obviously a key benefit. But more importantly, when IT pros establish strategies that adhere to open standards (open specs that have made the transition), they put themselves in control of their IT, instead of vendors. As I've written before, if the proprietary nature of Microsoft Office's document formats and macro languages taught us anything, it's that we turned control of a certain part of our IT over to Microsoft. Once we invested so heavily in those proprietary items (to the point of no return), we put Microsoft in control of the security, performance, and cost of our IT. When Microsoft changed the licensing scheme to Office, what choice did we have but to go along? Well, if the OASIS Open Document Format existed at the time and Microsoft complied with it, we would have had a choice. A choice to go to OpenOffice, StarOffice, Wordperfect, LotusWorkplace, or any other software that supported it. If one of those offered better performance, lower total cost of ownership, or a more secure platform, then, through compliance, our ability to switch means that we're in control of those aspects of our IT, rather than the vendor."
( Jun 20 2005, 04:07:53 PM CEST ) Permalink

Kommentare:

Senden Sie einen Kommentar:

Kommentare sind ausgeschaltet.