Re: Chance to comment on US government use of technology pages

[Richard Stallman <rms gnu org>]

I read the OSFA guidelines, http://opensourceforamerica.org/guidelines.
The points it makes are good points; however, as one would expect
from an organization that is aligned with open source, it omits
the stronger points that should have been central.  For instance,
that the use of a non-free program in a state agency is a dereliction
of sovereignty, and that any program the state agency distributes 
or recommends to the public should respect the public's freedom.

It correctly states that there should be no policies to favor any
particular development model (e.g., open source), but fails to call
for policies to systematically move to software that respects the
state's computing sovereignty (i.e., free software).

We can't expect to convert OSFA into a supporter of the free software
movement, but the GNOME Foundation should urge it to move at least
some ways in that direction.  Also, the GNOME Foundation should make
its own statement of what governments ought to do (for instance, aim
in the long run for zero use of proprietary software), so that people
don't assume its stand is the same as what OSFA says.