LOCAL IT developers are being stifled by the dominance of US software companies that hold on to government business through "vendor lock-in", industry observers say.
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motters
16 years 1 week 1 day 51 min ago
Ok, so tell us something we don't already know
The software industry is still relatively young - only two or three decades old - so I think governments and other large organisations have been fairly naive when it comes to purchasing software. They just went with whatever seemed popular at the time (or what often not entirely impartial consultants told them was good). However, I think people around the world are now getting much wiser to the "lock in" tactics frequently used by the pushers of proprietary software, and where possible are rejecting that way of doing things.
In the early days of any new industry you usually find giants and monopolies, but as time goes on I think we'll see these fade away to be replaced by a more competitive situation, which free/open source software facilitates.
geosync.orbit
16 years 1 week 15 hours 30 min ago
It's an easier form of advocacy
When stories like this are submitted and/or promoted on FSDaily, several things happen:
1) Importance is given to the story in the form of page rank. So we are effectively lending our support to this opinion.
2) New members of the FOSS community become exposed to information they may not have been previously aware of.
3) Those who were already aware of the facts are provided with new ways of explaining them which helps them when they then try to explain them to others.
4) You can use the "email" links to pass this information on to friends and colleagues who might not take the truth from you or other "biased" parties like the FSF but may take it from independent writers and publications.
5) It is encouraging for existing members of the FOSS community to see our messages being spread by more and more people especially when it is coming from sources that are well respected outside the FOSS community.
6) We are given a chance to discuss the finer points of the issue. We get the opportunity to pick out anything that wasn't quite right with the article and iron out any wrinkles so to speak.
There are probably more than just these reasons to see the same messages repeated again and again. So I, personally, am quite happy to see these stories again and again on FSDaily.