“The Initiative for Software Choice (ISC) has declared victory
in the open source war that never was–Massachusetts’ ‘Open Source
Mandate,’ which would have outlawed the purchase of practically all
non-open source software by state agencies, if it had ever existed.
Which it never, ever did.“As The Register pointed out when the story broke last
month, Massachusetts never said it was adopting a pro- open source
policy, nor did it say it ever say it was mandating the purchase of
open source software. It did say it would be adopting a broad-based
strategy of moving its computer systems towards open standards.
That didn’t stop the BSA jumping in, nor the ISC, nor indeed (one
must be fair) a rash of fevered speculation and Chinese whispers
from the pro- open source camp…”