Enterprise open source Toolkit

Story: Open standards 'essential to Europe's IT future'

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We've been here many times before X/Open OSI POSIX X400 Open group, the list goes on.

Proprietary suppliers such as Microsoft then decide which of these standards they accept and which they deem inappropriate because they wish to impose their own a de facto standard. Even when they appear to accept a standard they, over time, often impose a prorietary superset of features -for the benefit of its own customers.

When government's or companies take on open standards they always face an ongoing campaign against such decisions because they take business away from those suppliers offering a proprietary solution. they claim open standards "restrict choice" or "impose the lowest common denominator" "fail to move with technological developments" or "are less secure" etc.

When IBM was deemed to be a monopolist their loby against open standards was not aimed at the techical team of companies or govenment but at the managemnet. The phrase used to be, "dare you rrisk your company by not buying IBM". Microsoft seem to sell the same sort of message to the same sort of people.

Long term it does not matter that technical staff believe in open standards. They will only happen when non technical business managers understand their benefits or see through the snake oil salespersons.

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