[clug] US Australia Free Trade Agreement

[Alex Satrapa]

On 8 Apr 2004, at 01:15, Robert Brockway wrote:

> I've contracted to the Queensland government and I can say for sure 
> that
> OSS is alive and well there.  My contact with other state governments 
> at
> the time suggested this was also true elsewhere.

While this may be true for some internal work, external interfaces such 
as job applications and tender submissions tend to involve Word 
documents and Visual [whatever] programming.

> Seems to me the future of OSS is brighter than it was a few years
> ago (admittedly certain apsects of the FTA are concerning).

I've even seen a few job ads on Seek that allow you to submit RTF 
resumes instead of just Word!

> ... Queensland Government ... forced those
> redesigning a couple of departmental websites to make sure the sites 
> were
> standards compliant so that those accessing the sites from non-MS 
> browers
> would not be disadvantaged.

It's a little shocking to me how much momentum a IE-only-shop can have. 
I work with a guy who only believes in two browsers - IE6 and Netscape 
6. Everything else is treated as an insane diversion from The One True 
Browser Experience.

> I don't think it is popular at the moment to have a positive view of 
> the
> future ...

Optimism and unfounded trust will lead to disaster. I was taught a long 
time ago to always look at how laws can be abused when attempting to 
determine their value. Weigh up how the law might aid a truly 
people-loving government, versus how it could be abused by an 
authoritarian government, and decide on the balance of probabilities 
how the law will actually end up affecting the people.

> If the people in the street, who have nothing to do with computers 
> except
> to use them as consumers, raise these issues without being prompted you
> can be sure the message is out there.

I'm just worried that the message isn't being heard by the people who 
are condemning us to being annexed by the US Empire and falling to the 
hands of Darth Dubya.

Time to put the crack pipe down and head off to work, methinks.
Alex

The Universal Rule of Project Planning:
  "Fail to plan? Plan to fail!"
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