[Date Prev] | [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Date Next] -- [Date Index] | [Thread Index] | [Elist Home]
Subject: Re: [egov-bestpractice] OASIS E-GOV TC : BEST PRACTICE SC CHARTER
Two points about the proposed charter. 1. The draft points to this passage in the TC charter: To provide a mechanism for the creation of best practice documents relative to the adoption of OASIS specifications/standards and other related standards within Governments internationally And it further proposes the following language: The Best Practice must be directly related to Government business or beneficial to Government aims and objectives. Only best practice based on established/published specifications or standards will be considered. It seems ironic, therefore, that we should begin by circulating the draft in a proprietary, undocumented, non-OASIS format (Microsoft Word). At the meeting in Baltimore, we resolved to use only OASIS document formats for this work. The appropriate format here would be sxi, the nonproprietary format supported by free open-source tools and maintained by the OASIS Open Office XML Format TC: http://oasis-open.org/committees/office/ The OpenOffice product suite can be downloaded free from http://www.openoffice.org/ The software runs on Windows, Linux, and Solaris operating systems, and a beta release is available for Macintosh OS X. Some 25 different localizations are available that include most of the world's major languages. I personally prefer plain text for committee business and see no reason why we should be using anything else, but if members insist on using more complex formats to convey simple prose, I think they should employ the OASIS formats we agreed to use in Baltimore. 2. Item 4 of the draft charter says: The Best Practice will be delivered in the form of annotated case studies. Each would identify what specifics make it good practice, and also the learning points ie what would be done differently next time. It is not the intention to dictate solutions but to provide sufficient evidence so that people can draw their own conclusions as to what is appropriate to their circumstances. I have nothing against case studies per se, but it seems to me that at least one of the best practices I consider to be essential for governments -- the use, wherever possible, of open-source software -- is best addressed as an issue of public policy, not as something that should be urged through case studies. This issue, at least, can and should be addressed simply through a statement of the reasons that governments should, wherever possible, avoid the use of proprietary software, beginning with the security reasons. Jon
[Date Prev] | [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Date Next] -- [Date Index] | [Thread Index] | [Elist Home]
Powered by eList eXpress LLC