[ Thanks to Russell McOrmond for this
link. ]
“You might as well call it an election campaign.
“It’s going to get dirty, this tit-for-tat exchange between
those lobbying for increased use of open source in government and a
coalition that calls itself the Initiative for Software Choice
(ISC). The latest salvo came this week, when the ISC filed a
document with the U.S. Defense Department that rebuts an earlier
report from defense contractor MITRE. While MITRE endorsed open
source technologies like Linux as a viable alternative to Microsoft
applications, the ISC (which includes Microsoft as a key member),
recommends that the Pentagon should not “openly promote the use” of
such software.“The whole thing reminds me of the congressional election
campaign commercials we saw recently on U.S. TV channels, where
candidates spent more time bashing each other than putting forward
original ideas for improving the community. The ISC’s name,
meanwhile, is a hilarious example of co-opting the vocabulary of
your opponent to further your own agenda…”