Posted by
Richard Houston on
May 04, 2006; 4:46pm
URL: http://civicaccess.416.s1.nabble.com/Canada-Census-on-line-tp525p544.html
Hey Alain,
> I may be way off base here, and please step in if I am but I believe the
> Linux debate/browser compatibility doesn't fall within the scope of
> CivicAccess. At least as I understand it.
Fair enough.
>
>
> Also, if I may play the devils advocate, Stats Can is providing paper
> copies to everyone as an alternative. What is important is that the
> "ability to submit your data" be accessible to all.. That doesn't
> necessarily mean it has to be accessible to all browser types/Oses.
> Anyone try using BeOS? Unix? Somewhere a line must be drawn in order to
> allow government web services to evolve.
K, You had me on side right up to here. I would not call making a
website, the web was designed to be the ultimate thin client, work only
with specific browsers and operating systems evolution at all but
devolution. Why should I be punished for choosing a operating system and
or browser that ad-hears to standers when site development can be made to
open standers quite easily from the beginning.
In the future more and more info will become available on line and
possibly in the far future some maybe available only on line. I think the
groups position will have to change at that point.
> Being a public servant myself,
> I graple with these issues daily. There is a balance to be truck between
> making things accessible and keeping inline with current technologies.
>
I would take issue with the "current technologies" statement. This is a
technology choose that the government is making. It may be easier to go
down one road over another, from the developers point of view, but it is
a bad choose for open access to web site information now and in the
future.
With out going too far off the deep end here, promoting one OS over
another is limiting freedom of choice when comes to choosing to buy a
computer in the future. If you have all these site that only work on
Windows then the reason for using an alternative OS is much less
compelling and could be construed as the government, maybe not
intentionally, promoting one system over another. This is not for the
government to decide.
In the paper world, would we accept being told that we had to use a
specific type of pen with specific type of ink to mark and send in the
paper census forms? To use an analogy based on some of Jason's comments,
what if you were told that you could only travel the Trans Canada with
Ford vehicles? This would never happens as there are many car
manufactures and no one is grotesquely dominant but there would be
massive public out cry.
My wife said to me last night when this thing all started " why do we not
just run windows? Obviously it would be easier for us instead of you
going off on another crusade for open standers".
The last point here is that this is not an Open Source or Linux issue it
is an open standards issue and access to the data.
Maybe the group needs to formulate a policy in the use of "open standard"
for access to information where it relates to government and education.
Thanks for your time all.
+------------------------------------+
Best regards,
-Richard Houston
-R.L.H. Consulting
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