The Register: Why US Gov Reps Mugged Pro Open Source Declaration
Feb 04, 2003, 20:30 (7 Talkback[s])
(Other stories by John Lettice)
[ Thanks to Jason
Greenwood for this link. ]
"In the middle of last month a US delegation to an international
conference clearly signalled US policy as regards open source by
de-fanging a pro open source declaration. The conference, the Asian
regional meeting of the World Summit on the Information Society
(WSIS) had been poised to 'support' open source software in a
closing declaration, but the US government delegation dug its heels
in and had it watered down to 'encourage.'
"And you can read the finished version here, where you'll note
the key wording is: 'Development and deployment of open-source
software should be encouraged, as appropriate, as should open
standards for ICT networking.' We at El Reg would hazard a guess
that debarking as far as 'encouraged' would not have been
sufficient to secure Uncle Sam's support--but the addition of 'as
appropriate' sorts that out, leaving plenty of scope for certain
software vendors to argue that appropriate scenarios are few and
far between..."
Complete
Story
Related Story:
InfoWorld: WSIS Delegates Fail to Agree on Open-Source
'Support'(Jan 17, 2003)
