Posted by
Judyth Mermelstein on
May 17, 2006; 2:55pm
URL: http://civicaccess.416.s1.nabble.com/Re-Census-2006-available-for-Linux-tp609.html
Russell McOrmond <
[hidden email]> wrote in part:
>...
> Unfortunately you would have an uphill battle at this point if the
>government truly believes they "really really really" needed to run an
>application on the citizen's computer. There is no "standard" to do this
>that runs on every platform. The closest thing we have currently is the
>ECMA's standardization of C# and the CLI. This makes that platform far
>more appropriate than the proprietary Java and the JVM, but you are still
>locking out the low and high-end (Small/older machines, and mobile devices
>such as PDA's, etc) which do not run such complex language interpreters.
Today's New York Times seems to indicate Java may not stay proprietary
>>Chief Says Sun Plans to Offer Open-Source Version of Java
>>By LAURIE J. FLYNN
>>The move provides further evidence that Sun's new
>>management sees it as more of a services company than a
>>network computer maker.
>>
>>
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/17/technology/17suns.html?th&emc=thbut that won't resolve the accessibility issues for low-end users, though PDAs and whatnot used by the more affluent are likely to become more powerful to handle higher-end applications.
More to the point, though, the crux from a privacy and security perspective is
>... You are still downloading an application of unknown
>origins that has an undocumented task, with applications always having a
>target platform that creates incompatabilities.
The inherent problem there is not mere "incompatibilities" but the ways in which access to the individual's computer can be abused.
Also, while it is obviously an advantage to automate certain tasks on a site to accommodate the many non-techie users of "out of the box" software, I think Russell and I agree that the very fact of transferring knowledge and control of the user's system to third parties is pernicious, not least because it means users are left at the mercy of parties who may not really know what their applications are doing at the user end since user systems are so diverse.
Economically, the advantage of forcing standardization of applications and habits on the public makes it cheaper and more efficient for government and business to use the Web for their purposes ... but the real costs (money, learning curve, time, etc.) are merely being transferred to the individual users, many of whom are unable or unwilling to assume them.
> I think this is a bit outside of CivicAccess which is not the technical
>details of how the government interacts with citizens, but the
>availability to citizens of government generated information. While there
>is overlap, they aren't the same.
As Russell knows, I've been arguing for years that any "e-government" initiatives should be based on the technological lowest common denominator (inexperienced or handicapped user on older and/or less-powerful device) rather than the "software solutions" currently being sold to businesses whose philosophy is to simply dismiss "low end" clients as not worth the bother because they won't be buying enough products. Any government activity online should be accessible to each and every voter; in the same way as it's normal to provide TTY lines for deaf citizens along with voice lines for hearing ones, it should be routine to provide a plain text/hyperlink interface along with the all-singing, all-dancing Web sites one can only use with particular software products and 20/20 (or better) vision.
I can't say I've got very far with my individual attempts to sensitize people in government to the issues, even though I put it to them in terms of the need to think "all citizens" rather than "all 'normal' citizens working in modern offices with the latest gear and the freedom to use employers' resources for personal matters." In my admittedly-limited experience, civil servants and politicos tend to think of what works for them, not what obstacles are being created for people without the same resources. But that means there is an overlap: you can't explain accessibility to non-geeks without explaining *why* some technologies are accessible and others not, and *how* one can provide obstacle-free access without incurring a lot of extra trouble and expense. In other words, I think one has to reduce the geek-speak about hardware and software to a minimum of intelligible prose for the benefit of the non-geeks, but one also has to equip them to think past the IT departments' "the best way is to buy or upgrade X software" to the writing of specs like "must *not* require the user to download 5+ MB of proprietary software and plugins to use the home page."
> I think the better venue for what you are looking for is GOSLING -
>
http://GOSLINGcommunity.org . While there is an active Ottawa chapter, we
>haven't yet launched chapters in other cities and are looking for help.
I'm afraid I'm a semi-hermit (physical limitations) as well as only a semi-geek, so I'm not likely to be much use to GOSLING. I'm hoping that will not be the case here, given the emphasis on promoting accessibility for citizens to information and services, rather than advancing the philosophy of open technologies at more exalted levels. Especially since what happens at those more-exalted levels is things like this:
>
http://www.sshrc.ca/web/about/council_reports/news_e.asp#4>
>Following on Councils October 2004 approval in principle of open accesspermanent, free, online access to the results of federally-funded researchstaff consulted with the social sciences and humanities community and reported on the options available to make open access a reality.
>
>The idea of open access to all research is widely accepted, but presents a number of implementation obstacles, and the community is by and large cautious.
>
>Rather than imposing mandatory requirements on researchers to publish via open access, Council chose to increase awareness of open access, pursue discussions with major stakeholders, and gradually incorporate open access provisions in research support programs.
>
In other words, objections by parties which make money selling access to research and parties which don't want the headache of changing the way things work now were considered to outweigh the advantage of providing open access, but some future grants may eventually include clauses requiring free access to the research six months or a year after the original publisher has used it to generate revenues. (Sorry to be so cynical but I've read too many press releases like that over too many years.)
The Council's position won't prevent *some* researchers from choosing to publish in open archives but it certainly won't mean much more open access in the forseseeable future, even for SSHRC-funded research.
To me, this is one of the many sub-issues within the broad heading of "civic access" but I hardly know what we can do as a group to sensitize a federal government which routinely places business interests above the public interest. Any ideas of where we could start?
Regards,
Judyth
##########################################################
Judyth Mermelstein "cogito ergo lego ergo cogito..."
Montreal, QC <
[hidden email]>
Canada H4C 2P9 <
[hidden email]>
##########################################################
"A word to the wise is sufficient. For others, use more."
"Un mot suffit aux sages; pour les autres, il en faut plus."