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Re: [LUG] questions from the press

 

On Fri, 2007-09-21 at 18:50 +0100, Jonathan Roberts wrote:
> ec.europa.eu/enterprise/ict/policy/doc/2006-11-20-flossimpact.pdf
Wow! Some densely coded language but this conclusion on p12:

Policy strategies focus mainly on correcting current policies and
practices that implicitly or explicitly favour proprietary software:
    o Avoid penalising FLOSS in innovation and R&D incentives, public
R&D funding and public software procurement that is currently often
anti-competitive
    o Support FLOSS in pre-competitive research and standardisation
    o Avoid lifelong vendor lock-in in educational systems by teaching
students skills, not specific applications; encourage participation in
FLOSS-like communities
    o Encourage partnerships between large firms, SMEs and the FLOSS
community
    o Provide equitable tax treatment for FLOSS creators: FLOSS software
contributions can be treated as charitable donations for tax purposes.
Where this is already possible, spread awareness among firms,
contributors and authorities.
    o Explore how unbundling between hardware and software can lead to a
more competitive market and ease forms of innovation that are not
favoured by vertical integration.

For Small and Medium Enterprises and FLOSS see sections 7.5.2-5. Does
the Extramadura/Andalucia model apply to Cornwall and Devon??????? Can
we replicate that success here?

I found these interesting: (I am sure each of us would pick
differently!) extracts from the huge document.

p49 It should be emphasised that the quantity of publicly distributed
FLOSS code (as measured by source lines of code, or SLOC) is doubling
every 18 to 24 months. This has been a finding of our study on the
Debian collection over an 8-year period, and is consistent with the
evolution of other FLOSS software collections (such as for Java-based
FLOSS code). Of course, this means that during the last 18-24 months as
much FLOSS software code was created as in the entire previous history
of FLOSS development. (net code) 

p64 shows a sad statistic in the years 1950-85, 16% of contributors to
FLOSS were under 16, in 2002 zero; 16-18 yrs dropped from 27% to 8%. Our
schools need to know this.

p66 The survey showed that developers believe that the skills they learn
through FLOSS communities can compensate for a lack of a formal degree
(see Figure 33). Employers believe a number of skills are learnt better
in the “learn-by-doing” methods of participation in FLOSS communities
than in formal courses (see Figure 32) – unsurprisingly developers are
even more positive than employers about this. Furthermore, 55% of
employers say that employees with proven FLOSS development experience
would be paid as much as employees with a formal degree and 13% even say
they would pay employees with FLOSS development experience more than
those with a formal degree.

p83 The UK and Swiss firms were able to work together to implement a
solution for BIOMED, a global database of thousands of medical images,
and the national Orixo members are closely collaborating with the
national TV/media organisations (BBC in the UK and RAI in Italy) to
build FLOSS-based solutions for reliable broadband and mobile media
content servers. This model allows each small firm to profit from its
expertise for custom solutions, while drawing on a large base of
pre-written software under FLOSS licences, and draw in addition on a
large community of hundreds of individual developers spread around the
world, including volunteers but also other similar small companies.
Needless to say, skills levels in these niche firms are very high, with
proportionately high salary levels and profits and potential for
network-based employment generation on a large scale.

So, how come the BBC didn't do this for its recent controversial
innovation? I was sure there must be a FLOSS solution - ditto the NHS
system.

Whilst I skipped a lot I found I learned a lot and appreciated the depth
and extent of the work that is done in Europe on recognising and using
FLOSS and understanding its value and significance to us all.

I commend 
p180 section 9.2 SWOT analysis
p201 section 9.3 on the 3 scenarios related to freedom to use FLOSS
p205 section 9.5.1 on interoperability and
p216 Section 9.5.5 on Education in IT (schools)

Thanks Jon

-- 
James Kilty
http://www.kilty.demon.co.uk


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