Chuckle. Some people don’t get FLOSS, like the vendor that complained about the Swiss Supreme Court planning to share software it created:
“The vendor feared the court was entering into competition. The developers in response pointed to the Swiss e-government strategy, which encourages sharing and reuse of data and services. The parliament’s control committee, which dealt with the case, rejected the complaint last September.”
see Swiss open source awards for canton of Waadt and Supreme Court | Joinup.
Sharing is not competition and not unfair. It is the right way to do IT. Folks who comment here that FLOSS somehow is unfair to developers don’t get it either. People who create software are entitled and encouraged to share it. The world can make its own software and does not owe businesses who sell licences for software a living.
I recommend Debian GNU/Linux for people who like to share. It’s a great platform for creating, and running Free Software.
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Oh, Mr. Pogson, you are dumb.
First of all, have you done your research? No. You don’t know what’s it about, you don’t even know the name of the vendor.
The vendor’s name is Weblaw. And the reason they complained you obviously can’t comprehend. They complained because the software the Schweizerisches Bundesgericht (Switzerland Federal Supreme Court) has developed in-house — financed through taxes — directly competes with Weblaw’s software, the development of which is paid for by Weblaw. Not only that, but you also have an organ of the state very heavy-handedly intervening in the free market without the legal basis to do so.
Here are some not-so-biased references for you. Use Google Translate or Mr. Ham (who claimed to understand German) or whatever.
http://www.nzz.ch/aktuell/startseite/justitia-als-marketenderin-1.11128350
http://www.silicon.de/41554615/schweizer-streiten-um-open-source/
http://blog.weblaw.ch/2011/09/06/bundesgericht-weblaw-es-fehlt-immer-noch-die-gesetzliche-grundlage/
http://blog.weblaw.ch/2011/11/18/stellungnahme-der-weblaw-ag-zu-openjustitia/
Have fun in your black-and-white world.
Since your ‘spam’ filter seems to have swallowed my post because of ‘bad’ words, here’s a tl;dr version:
The Federal Supreme Court acts as a competitor to Weblaw (the company whose name you couldn’t be bothered to find out). And because they are financed through taxes, it’s unlawful competition. Not according to me, but according to Swiss law. And it’s quite ironic that it’s the supreme court who violates constitutional law.
Read all about it here: http://www.nzz.ch/aktuell/startseite/justitia-als-marketenderin-1.11128350
Chris Weig wrote, “it’s unlawful competition”.
No, it’s not. Taxpayers invest money in their government to provide goods and services at a reasonable price. In this case, at the cost of production. That’s proper and reasonable. To say the wishes of the people is unlawful is tyrannical. Tyranny is not what people want. They want goods and services at reasonable prices, not what the market will bear.
Taxpayers should be happy that legal beagles have less expensive software to do the job. That should reduce costs, a good thing.
Go tell the German government that the police are illegal competition for criminal gangs or the US government that the armed forces of the USA are illegal competition for militias and see how far you get. Your argument as was the argument of Weblaw’s bears little weight.
In Canada, we used to have a system where each physician had to collect bills from patients and farmers had to choose between paying the veterinarian or his physician if money was tight. We switched to government/taxpayer-funded MediCare and that problem was solved. Doctors protested then the same way. Unfair competition! Now they love it because they don’t have to chase 50 insurance companies or patients for money. They have less paperwork and a much more reliable income. In USA, folks still have to worry about medical insurance because they have to support dozens of bureaucracies instead of just one and losing a job may cause losing insurance. Sharing is not unfair. It’s the right way to do things that affect large numbers of people. Software is the same thing. It affects us all and it’s good to be shared. No one should object to sharing.
If a government develops software for internal use, it’s the property of the taxpayers who financed it and should be shared. That gets the greatest benefit for the taxes paid, a very good thing. All too often we read about government waste. It’s good to read about government productivity.
It’s unlawful under Swiss law. Because the Swiss constitution clearly states that the state musn’t intervene in the free market, unless very specific conditions are met. They are not in this case. The article in the Neue Zuericher Zeitung has put it very nicely: it’s not so much about open source, it really is about forbidden cross-subsidization under the guise of open source.
BTW, Pogson, if you are unwilling or unable to read the articles I’ve linked to, don’t continue spouting nonsense.
“If a government develops software for internal use, it’s the property of the taxpayers who financed it and should be shared. ”
The first part of that sentence may be a valid assertion, the second in this case (sharing the software) is a violation of the swiss constitutions, and all of the personal bloviation is not going to change that fact.
oldman, thinking the Swiss are really strange, wrote, “the second in this case (sharing the software) is a violation of the swiss constitutions”.
I have been to Switzerland for a few days. They are perfectly normal people and love to share. Niklaus Wirth shared Modula-2 for RT-11 with me. I gave him a new box of 8 inch floppies and he gave me a used box with the Modula-2 system I needed to write a control system for King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh. He was Swiss and shared. Neat, eh? So, what makes you think there’s a law against sharing in Switzerland?
In this case whether you like it or not the swiss government cant share because that sharing constituted an unlawful intervention in the free market.
Sharing is great when it is voluntary pog. But when people begin to take others generosity for granted and begin to insist that theyhave some right to what is being shared, that is something quite different.
And imho you have crossed that line many times in your blogging.
That is why i referred to you as a parasite.
oldman wrote, “the swiss government cant share because that sharing constituted an unlawful intervention in the free market.”
So, it’s illegal for the state to mess with whatever business does? I’d guess you think the state should leave contract killers alone too. The Swiss government shared the Swiss government’s property. They did nothing to prevent any business from working for a living. In particular that business could continue to sell licences, service contracts, training etc.
I have produced a lot of things in my life. I am not a parasite. Most of the software I use is used with the permission of the authours. The rest I made myself. Recently, I have reflected on what I have done in my life. The old homestead is an example. The little woman and I designed and built it from swamp to beautiful property with mature trees we planted. It was hard work over a decade and more. I have worked hard at whatever I have done and I have done many difficult and challenging things including teaching. I have done things ranging from physical labour in heat and cold to purely theoretical thinking with little practical application. I have done all these things for my satisfaction, not yours, oldman. I am not a parasite.
So, it’s illegal for the state to mess with whatever business does? I’d guess you think the state should leave contract killers alone too.
Again an incredibly dumb sentence from you. Childish and immature. Nobody wrote anything about contract killers, nobody wrote anything about the state not being allowed to intervene at all.
Read the Swiss Constitution before you spout more nonsense. It’s there. Article 94.
http://www.admin.ch/ch/d/sr/101/a94.html
The Swiss government shared the Swiss government’s property.
It wasn’t the Swiss government, it was the Swiss Federal Supreme Court.
They did nothing to prevent any business from working for a living.
Yes, they did. Because there was a market the Supreme Court intruded on. Weblaw complained because at the time they were negotiating with some Swiss cantonal courts about adopting their software. The deals all fell through because the Supreme Court suddenly entered the market with its for-free tax-financed solution, thereby competing unfairly. What’s more, Swiss law forbids administrative units (of the state) to become commercial service providers, unless a law allows them to.
http://www.admin.ch/ch/d/sr/611_0/a41.html
In particular that business could continue to sell licences, service contracts, training etc.
That doesn’t change the fact that the Supreme Court intruded on the free market without any legal basis.
Chris Weig wrote, “Read the Swiss Constitution before you spout more nonsense. It’s there. Article 94.”
OK. Here goes…
“Article 94 Principles of Economic Order
1 Confederation and cantons adhere to the principle of economic freedom.
2 the interests of the Swiss economy and help with the private sector to the welfare and economic security of the true population.
3 you provide as part of its responsibilities for enabling environment for the private sector.
4 Deviations from the principle of economic freedom, particularly measures aimed against the competition are permissible only if they are provided in the Federal Constitution or established by cantonal shelf rights.”
The Swiss government did nothing to eliminate competition. The business was still able to offer to sell whatever it wanted and even to give it away. BTW, that’s a translation from German by Google so not likely to be correct. However the plain meaning of the translation does not show a violation. Producing a product is legitimate in a free economy.
Producing a product is legitimate in a free economy.
A typical alibi argument. You conveniently left out the part where you say who produces said product. If it’s an institution of the state — the same state who’s responsible for protecting the free market — then you have a problem. Or wouldn’t you say so, too?
What’s more, under Swiss law, even if an institution of the state is given permission to act as a commercial service provider, it can only do so if it charges for said service(s) in order to recoup their costs. But the Swiss Federal Supreme Court had their software purely financed by tax-payer money. Hence, forbidden cross-subsidization.
Chris Weig wrote, “the Swiss Federal Supreme Court had their software purely financed by tax-payer money”.
So, it’s perfectly reasonable that taxpayers get to use what they paid for is it not? Why should taxpayers have to pay twice what they paid to produce the product?
“I have done all these things for my satisfaction, not yours, oldman. I am not a parasite.”
To be perfectly blunt, I do not give a crap about what you have done. I care about what you have said.
You have also said that you have a right to “Breath free software”.
You have also said that “the world does not owe a few a living”.
You also lecture us at length about the joys of sharing for the betterment of the world, as if such an act is the only way to behave.
Here’s a newsflash Pog. IF a person or a company creates an application that has value, decides that they wish to reap the benefits of that application. It is their right under the law to protect that application and sell licenses for its use on their terms. If it just so happens that that particular application is useful to you, you have exactly two options: 1) accept the vendors terms, or 2) do without the benefits.
Yet you continue to advocate in effect that these people be deprived of their property rights under the law because YOU think that that property should be for the good of all and by extension yourself, by right.
You would in effect, require all software creators to share whether they want to or not. Why? So that you can share the benefits of their work gratis as you do the generosity of FOSS producers.
It is that stated insistence on getting something for nothing that makes you a parasite in my eyes.
“So, it’s perfectly reasonable that taxpayers get to use what they paid for is it not?”
Not in this case.
” Why should taxpayers have to pay twice what they paid to produce the product?”
Because in this case, its the law.