Re: [edlug] Donateing CD's to Edinburgh Council

[Matthew Slane <m.slane@xxx.xxx.xxx>]

Bob Kerr wrote:

> As part of an Open Source Awareness program, I am going to donate a 
> copy of the LendingCD and a copy of TheOpenCD to every Edinburgh City 
> Councillor. There are 58 Councillors in all and I am going to write a 
> letter concerning the lending CD in libraries project.
>
> I am also willing to include a letter from Edlug. The only problem 
> that I see is how does Edlug as a group write a letter. The letter 
> must have a fixed and easily accomplishable goal for the council and 
> if possible should be signed by the members.
>
> An accomplishable goal would be something like sending the marketing 
> pdf about Openoffice to council employees or even just the 
> Personel/human resources department. For signing it we can either have 
> a representative sign for all of us or we can have stated objectives 
> on the Wiki which could be signed and after a specified date the Wiki 
> page becomes read only.
>
> Thoughts anyone ?
>
> Cheers
>
> Bob
>
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One thing that I think should definitely be mentioned is that open source
software is built on open standards so anyone can write a program based
on that standard, propriety, or non-propriety.  Microsoft are currently
trying to patent its XML extensions used in the latest office products
to further increase vendor lock-in. While I think this will currently
only apply in the US, EU patent law is rapidly becoming more and more in
line with the US.  We must remember that this is often *our* data that
the government and councils is storing in these formats.  It is in
everyones interests to have this data stored in an open, non-propriety
format.  We really need to get *our* government out of its MSOffice
addiction before we end up in a state where the only wasy to access our
data is through Microsoft  tools.  After all, do we really want to trust
a company that behaves in the way Microsoft do with data about us?

.



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