How Critical is Open Source?

If you ask the U.S. Department of Defense...

"OSS and open source development methodologies are important to the National Security and National Interest of the U.S."

Why?

Because, according to a new DoD report, open technologies ...

• Enhance agility of IT industries to more rapidly adapt and change to user needed capabilities.

• Strengthen the industrial base by not protecting industry from competition. Makes industry more likely to compete on ideas and execution versus product lock-in.

• Enable DoD to secure the infrastructure and increase security by understanding what is actually in the source code of software installed in DoD networks.

• Rapidly respond to adversary actions as well as rapid changes in the technology industrial base.

This is the open source imperative. And it applies with equal force to every government and company. Despite the continued protestations of proprietary vendors, if your business model fails to incorporate open technologies, eventually your business will be at a competitive disadvantage.

You might as well tie one hand behind your back and use the other hand to shoot yourself in the foot.

Competing without open source ...

creates an arbitrary scarcity of ... software code, which increases the development and maintenance costs of information technology ... Other negative consequences include lock-in to obsolete proprietary technologies, the inability to extend existing capabilities in months vs. years, and snarls of interoperability that stem from the opacity and stove-piping of information systems.

The shift to more open approaches--using open standards, services-oriented architectures, open source style collaboration and innovative partnerships--must not only touch the ICT level in an enterprise. It must impact your business, information and service levels as well, and link them together.

SOA is not enough. The integration of service-oriented business, information and service design is critical to enterprise transformation, and competing in today's rapidly shifting marketplace and ICT landscape.

Yesterday's approaches to R&D, distribution and intellectual property served well in an industrial era; they are poorly suited for today's networked, high-speed, on-demand world.

Pearl Jam Faces an Inconvenient Truth

Over the past few years, we've seen quite a few musicians stand up on heavy political issues. Bono. REM. Springsteen. Credit Sir Bob Geldoff, author of the 1980s campaign to feed a starving Ethiopia.

Now Pearl Jam faces up to an Inconvenient Truth, something that precious few politicians (and few of us regular folks) dare do. Global warming is a crisis, and not tomorrow. It is here today, so says every serious scientist whose work has been peer reviewed.

Here's what the U.S. National Academy of Science says: "The changes observed over the last several decades are likely because of human activities, for the most part."

Enter Pearl Jam. The Seattle-based rockers have pledged $100,000 to offset the carbon emissions generated during their global tour.

Pearl Jam has a Carbon Portfolio Strategy.

Does your organization? Does your city? Do you?

But don't worry, what's one more year of record heat?

Google Joins ODF Alliance ... Is it Official?

Apparently, according to a story in Computerworld, Google joined the ODF Alliance on Saturday (4 days ago). The ODF Alliance quietly listed Google on its website as a member, with no press release or announcement, clearly by agreement with Google.

Google is saying even less. There is nothing on its website indicating its membership in the ODF Alliance. No press release, no announcement on its official blog. If you search Google News for "ODF Alliance" and Google, you get 0 search results.

This all begs the question ... why hasn't Google made any public statement about joining the ODF Alliance, which it apparently did 4 days ago?

Obviously this is news. Good news, though not completely unexpected given Google's acquisition of Writely, an online collaborative word processing program that supports ODF. If joining the ODF was news when the City of Bristol in the UK did (and it was), why has Google given this the silent treatment? Even when directly asked about it.

Well, a few explanations are possible ...

Maybe Google is waiting to jointly announce support for ODF by its new, online Google Spreadsheets?

Or, maybe Google has decided to make its announcement at an upcoming, high-profile event? [Though they must have known word would get out and they'd be behind the news]

Or maybe they don't want to treat joining another group as news? [But it is news, especially given the increasing importance of ODF and the major news its adoption by governments generated.]

So, Eric, Larry and Sergey ...
what's the story?

Open ICT and Inconvenient Truths

I just saw the movie "An Inconvenient Truth", and it got me to thinking about the intersection between my work on open technologies and global warming. Don't see the connection? Neither did I until tonight.

First of all, GO SEE THIS MOVIE. Regardless of your politics -- better yet, suspend your politics -- and actively watch this film. If you walk out not convinced that we are in the midst of a global crisis, a REAL crisis, you are either deaf, dumb and blind, or you sadly fall into the category of people described by Upton Sinclair and quoted by Al Gore in the movie:

"It's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

So, the connection between global warming and open technologies?

That same thought -- the difficulty in people seeing things differently when their jobs, up until that point, depended on the status quo -- applies to IT companies (and governments) and open technologies. Open source is an obvious example. Or Creative Commons as a new approach to copyright. Or software as a service (the expertise of other Jeff Kaplan). Or new ways of sharing music and photos (before Napster, now BitTorrent). It's the same quandery for Microsoft and the Opendocument Format.

Here's an inconvenient truth for the IT industry: successful business models will more and more integrate (even depend upon) greater, deeper collaboration with users, customers, non-staff content creators and even competitors (e.g., in context of creating open standards).

More and more, you have to collaborate to compete.

Bristol Votes with its Feet on ODF (Again)

Last year, the City of Bristol in the UK switched from Microsoft Office to Sun's Star Office. In April, I blogged about the publication of the business case supporting Bristol's move, and the attention paid in it to the value proposition of using the OpenDocument Format (ODF).

Today, Bristol announced a third move, officially joining the ODF Alliance.

So, although Bristol has deployed a version of Star Office that does not have native support for ODF (it was not a finalized format at the time), there is not doubt where they are heading when their next upgrade happens. The question now is: do other local governments in the UK intend to follow the path that Bristol (and Massachustetts, Belgium, Denmark, etc) has blazed?

Correction: Light Exists, But Microsoft Squints

As the wise and insightful Sam Hiser has pointed out, Microsoft has not yet seen the light.

The light --- true interoperability, genuine openness, user control over their own data/documents and choices over their ICT --- is visible. And there are technologies that exist to help us reach it, such as OpenDocument Format.

But Microsoft remains allergic to light. It's "big" move is not about INTERoperability; it does not "build a technical bridge between the Open XML Formats and Open Document Format(ODF)," as advertised by MS.

Instead, it will build a vacuum cleaner (a "hoover" for you Europeans) by which MS uses the Open XML Translator to suck in any documents created in ODF. Or for you Star Trek fans, a giant tractor beam pulling ODF documents into Microsoft's proprietary orbit.

Sam Hiser describes it perfectly:

The tool [will] change ODF's open XML content into MSECMAXML's corrupted XML. That means Office 2007 -- a product not in circulation -- will one day be endowed with the ability to open an ODF file and save it as the Microsoft "Open XML" format . . . ODF files are being shifted into MSECMAXML, possibly the most proprietary format ever proposed in the history of standards. MSECMAXML is a private implementation of open XML so clogged with binary flotsam & jetsam, to which only Microsoft customers will ever gain access.

Interoperability is a two-way street. Until MS enables direct, native support for ODF in its software, it is not offering interoperability in any way. Here's another good article on the initial misreading of the news.

Until then, all you hear eminating from Redmond is a giant sucking sound.

Microsoft Sees a Light, as Predicted

Official announcement from Redmond today: Microsoft will set up an open source project -- the Open XML Translator project -- to create a series of tools that allow translation between its (non-open) OpenXML format and OpenDocument (ODF) format. My prediction about ODF is coming true, and faster than expected.

Should we be surprised?

No.

Microsoft has always left itself a loophole for supporting ODF by saying it would support it when its customers demanded it. When was the tipping point reached? Apparently decisions by the State of Massachusetts, City of Bristol, Australia's National Archives, Denmark, France and Belgium are enough. Recent rumblings by India's National Informatics Center likely sent shockwaves around the Redmond campus. MS was clear that governments were the catalyst for its move.

Sure, the Microsoft press release still contained plenty of FUD. Here's a sample: “Open XML and ODF were designed to meet very different customer requirements ... [and] ODF focuses on more limited requirements." Ah, no, sorry, ODF is designed to meet critical demands for long-term access to data and ensuring interoperability. Nothing limited or specialized about those demands. More importantly, however, MS is voting with its feet, and its actions speak louder than its archaic words. True, it is not bundling ODF into Office 2007. Now that would be a BIG deal. Consider this a baby step.

Suppporting ODF, even indirectly by supporting creation of a plugin, makes good business sense for MS. The trend line is clear and upward for ODF, driven by a strong business case for open data formats. And instead of simply standing on the sidelines while others develop software plugins that make ODF usable in Windows, MS has decided to directly aid in their development (as an open source project, interestingly). This is a good thing for at least three reasons:

(1) MS involvement can improve the integration and ease of an ODF-OpenXML Translator into Windows;

(2) It is unlikely to kill off ODF by offering a less-than-optimal plugin that must be separately downloaded and installed into Windows (though that may be MS's intention) because ODF remains the only truly open data standard, Vista raises serious backward compatibility and data privacy concerns, and plenty of customers want out from under MS's heavy thumb; and

(3) It moves MS slightly farther along on the "openness" continuum, and hopefully begins to erode some of that ingrained resistance to all things "open."

Maybe Microsoft is beginning to see that openness is good for business. It shouldn't be just a PR stunt.

And it's not yet the full support of ODF that should happen, as noted in my most recent post above or discussed in Information Week here.

The (Mis)education of Ted Stevens

I know that often I expect too much of politicians. Example: I expect them to actually know something about the things they are making decisions about. And I'm often disappointed when they (and their staffs) display their ignorance.

So, here we go again ...

Here are the actual words of a politician with real power over the Internet in America:

I just the other day got an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o’clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially. […]

They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It’s not a truck. It’s a series of tubes.

Who is this genius? Ted Stevens, an 85-year old Republican Senator from Alaska. Unfortunately, he is also the Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, a committee with great influence over legislation about the Internet. The full audio of his comments is here. Listen and you will see that I am being kind with my remarks about him.

These are the people making decisions and policies about the Internet, technology and, in this case, net neutrality. It is probably a similarly sad situation in every country.

I am not a supporter of term limits for legislators, but I am beginning to think that a mandatory retirement age is a good idea.

China Strikes Right Competitive Chord

In many countries, rich and poor, competitiveness is the new national anthem. And political leaders often sing a similar tune. For example, when President Bush and China’s President Hu Jintao each speak about a vision for their country’s future competitiveness, they strike similar rhetorical notes – innovation, education, investment and emerging technologies.

However, Washington’s rendition is missing a chord: the role of global collaboration. Not so in Beijing. In both policy and practice, global collaboration is central to China’s blueprint for national competitiveness. Other governments should pay attention.

China’s State Council, its most powerful executive body, has just published a national strategy for building an innovative, high-tech society. Its 15-year plan has four pillars: investment in science and technology, a focus on strategic sectors, inflow of talent, and, significantly, resource sharing among universities and industry and government.

Beijing is also pushing Chinese companies and universities to increase their international partnerships. Today, over 750 foreign-funded research and development centers operate in China. Beijing is promoting investment mechanisms that marry Chinese and international venture financing for its start-up technology firms. Chinese collaboration is even bridging historical enmities. An industry consortium, backed by the governments of China, Japan and South Korea, is jointly developing a version of Linux software to rival Microsoft Windows. China’s role in global networks also extends to more nefarious activities such as the international trade in pirated software, music and films.

The forces driving globalization—cheap technology, the Internet, wireless phones and Bluetooth—are producing new avenues of innovation. The Human Genome Project, Wikipedia, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (a Nobel prize winner), eBay and al-Qa’ida all share something in common. Each represents a network of global collaboration.

The impact of these communities of scientists, activists, software engineers and consumers worldwide highlight the flaw in America’s policy formula for competitiveness. Tax credits and visas are not enough. Innovation has gone global. An “us against them” attitude is destined to fail. Open innovation is the way forward.

US companies have figured it out, building manufacturing facilities, global supply chains, call centers and software development centers around the world. Nothing stops at the water’s edge anymore. All pipelines – whether for oil or innovation – are global.

The convergence of world-class infrastructure, an educated work force, venture capital and cutting-edge science in geographic proximity has always been a winning combination. Silicon Valley remains a private sector powerhouse. Its leaders, however, recognize that the innovation game is evolving. As the CEO of Sun Microsystems recently put it, the crown jewels of competitiveness—knowledge, ideas and processes—must be shared to create tomorrow’s economic opportunities. The scions of Silicon Valley see that collaboration is the key to competing tomorrow. Open innovation is best way to leverage R&D, talent and technology abroad.

Governments everywhere should pay attention. They need to invest boldly in global innovation chains where people, data and devices are shared, not simply imported. They need to ensure that their scientists, laboratories, agencies and universities are intimately linked to them. Predicting the next Big Thing may be impossible. However, it is a good bet that a global network of innovators will create it.

While I Was Sleeping, ODF Moves...

I have been remiss about posting over the past two weeks -- and missed posting about BIG news about ODF -- Belgium's adoption of ODF beginning in 2008 and public rumblings in India about the value of ODF. Fortunately, they were well covered, and deservedly.

I was asked to share some thoughts with India's eGov Magazine in a recent interview. The topics of discussion: ongoing work of the Open ePolicy Group, open ICT ecosystems, open source and its alleged antagonism to intellectual property.

The Long & Winding Road for Open Standards

Reaching general acceptance of open standards will be long and winding road (Happy birthday, Paul McCartney!). And, to paraphrase Robert Frost, there are many miles to go before we sleep. It's easy to forget that. But then, I see a blog post like this blog post and understand the distance still to travel.

Even well-meaning (if somewhat libertarian) folks can misunderstand the dynamic value of open standards. Here is a recent anti- open standards argument was made:

What I’m really concerned about is about government’s involvement in open standards ... we should be wary of governments like Massachusetts singling out a particular standard for “approval.” This is what Massachusetts is already on board with by approving two file formats - Adobe PDF and the Open Document Format (ODF) as the only state approved file formats ...

If a government is worried about the interoperability and the preservation of documents, it can include in its request for proposal a description of this concern and an “ask” for the best way to address the issue. This approach would be government relying on the market for solutions, not getting into the business of giving its stamp of approval to certain technologies."

It almost sounds reasonable, if it was not turning reality on its head.

Mandating open standards means that the market will provide solutions. Too often, detractors of open standards (and Massachusetts) fail to understand the difference between standards and technologies. There are plenty of good, simple explanations. Bob Sutor has blogged an excellent primer on this subject starting here.

To be clear, requiring open standards does not mean a government has chosen any specific solution or technology. That is the whole point. Anyone, any company, any technology can use that open standard. That is what being "open" is all about.

That electricity outlet on your wall -- its shape, its voltage level -- is based on an open standard mandated by government. It does not in any way limit what device can be plugged into it, or by whom. It is entirely technology, vendor and user neutral ... as an open standard should be.

Selecting appropriate standards (as opposed to solutions) is exactly what governments do all the time. They weigh costs and benefits, the public interest and market impact -- and set standards accordingly for endless things from health and safety standards to manufacturing, cars, electricity transmission and construction codes. We don't allow the "market" (meaning vendors) set their own standards in all cases. We depend on government to set minimum requirements in vital areas. Those are standards. We don't want vendors to decide about the shape of their power plugs. That's would be wasteful, absurd and possibly dangerous.

It is the same for technology. Governments can and should set minimum requirements that ensure certain public needs are met. When it comes to maximizing interoperability, long-term access to public records and competition, open standards deliver those benefits.

ODF Heal Thyself

It looks like OASIS is taking biblical advice with regard to the Opendocument Format. Access for people with disabilities is ODF's potential Achilles heel, a deal-breaker for most governments who need to (and should) assure access to public records and data for employees and citizens with disabilities.

The OASIS ODF Accessibility Subcommittee has just issued its accessibility assessment of the ODF 1.0 specification, available publicly here.

The report's Executive Summary lays out a roadmap for ODF to meet or exceed accessability of any file format:

The ODF Accessibility Subcommittee has identified 9 accessibility issues in ODF 1.0, and proposes candidate solutions to them. With these changes, we believe that ODF will meet or exceed the accessibility support provided in all other office file formats as well as that specified in the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0.

Furthermore, these modifications will enable ODF to support the authoring of DAISY digital talking books, a worldwide standard used by blind, low vision, learning disabled, and other print impaired communities.

The recommended changes address:

* Alternative text for non-text objects (3 recommendations)
* Proper association of captions to captioned content
* Encoding of pagination information
* Preservation of table semantic structure imported from other file formats
* Proper encoding of authored table header content
* Author-defined logical navigation of page objects in presentations
* Provision of alternative text hints for hyperlinks

Furthermore, we request that the appropriate text be added to the ODF specification to indicate how this accessibility meta data is mapped by the authoring tool to a platform accessibility API as well as their accessibility applicability in the specification.

To fully address the needs of people with disabilities in using ODF, an ODF application must meet a number of accessibility requirements as well. ODF application developers should be provided with implementation guidelines to meet these requirements.

In other words, in solving any problems with ODF usability by people with disabilities, OASIS is on it.

Looking for IT Leaders? Try Denmark

There is big news about to break on the IT policy front, and it comes from Denmark.

It is expected that tomorrow the Danish Parliament will approve a bill to require the government to use open standards beginning January 1, 2008. This is unofficial at the moment, but a majority in Parliament will apparently vote in favor of the motion, orginally tabled by Morten Helveg Petersen.

John Gotze offers an excellent summary of the motion (in english).

During the motion's initial debate there was enormous resistence from the Minister of Science and no commitment from the Liberal-Conservative government for an open standards law. But two developments changed the political balance. As blogged by John Gotze, the pro-government, conservative Danish People's Party came out in support the motion. And a Danish daily newspaper published a previously secret internal government report that recommended mandating open standards to ensure interoperability, even if specific an economic cost/benefit analysis was not yet possible. The tide turned, and the Helveg Petersen Motion has apparently found a majority.

Two specific points to note with the Danish bill:

1. It will incorporate open standards into public procurement of IT.

2. It specifically says that all digital information and data that the public sector exchanges with citizens, companies and institutions, should be in open standards- based formats. It does not mention the OpenDocument Format, but ODF clearly meets the requirements of this law regarding public documents.

Although the implementation of an open standards mandate will depend on numerous issues of technical feasibility differing from standard to standard, there is no doubt that its impact will be far-reaching.

Count Denmark along with the State of Massachusetts as the two leading governments in IT policy.

ODF on the Move in France & Denmark

OpenDocument Format (ODF) is making news in Europe, again.

The French government has officially issued for public comment an interoperability framework -- Referentiel General Interoperabilite -- that recommends the use of OpenDocument Format (ODF) in its technical interoperability section (in French). The intial public comment period, which began in April, ends on June 15. The end of the entire comment process is September 2006.

This has been blogged about briefly in a few places very recently -- Groklaw, OpenOffice.org, Sun's Erwin Tenhumberg and here (in french) -- but I wanted to spread the news and a few more details.

Specifically, the RGI proposes 3 things:

Section RIT0025:

It is RECOMMENDED to use Open Document Format for exchanging semi-structured office documents (such as word processing, presentation and spreadsheet documents).

Section RIT0026

It is MANDATORY to accept every document in Open Document Format for exchanging semi-structured office documents (such as word processing, presentation and spreadsheet documents)

Section RIT0027

It is FORBIDDEN to migrate from some often used format inside an organization to any other format than the Open Document Format.
(Translation courtesy of Tristan Nitot)

So what does it all mean? It's not a tipping point, nor even a final decision in France. But it is another step forward for ODF. Another government has officially tabled ODF for consideration.

In Denmark, as blogged by John Gotze here, the Ministry of Science is taking an interim step forward with ODF, requiring that all online documents and communications be published in ODF for a six-month trial period. Why the half-step? Pressure, mainly from leading members of the Danish Parliament like Morten Helveg Petersen who tabled a motion to require open standards that was debated two weeks ago. Although it faced heavy opposition from the Minister of Science, mainly based on the issue of how much an open standards mandate would cost, there was enough momentum to force a trial period for ODF beginning September 1st.

The ODF movement is more than afoot. One thing it could use now, however, is a strong quantitative analysis of the economic implications of open standards, and ODF in particular. Based on early returns from Massachusetts and Denmark, this is a crucial stumbling block for governments (other than intensive MS lobbying) -- understanding how much the move to open standards will cost.

OASIS, are you listening?

Net Neutrality in the New York Times

Just a quick post to share a link to today's op-ed piece in the New York Times about net neutrality.

It's worth a read. The only thing I might add, which is implied in the article but not clearly, simply stated, is: Net neutrality has governed the Internet since Day 1. It is not a new regulation or a new market barrier; it is the principle that has allowed the explosive innovation of the Internet to happen.

The free market rhetoric of telco/cable industry front organizations would have you believe otherwise. But they never tell you this: the Internet and all its innovation to date have occurred under the umbrella of net neutrality.

Think of it this way -- net neutrality ensures that the barriers to entry for Internet content and services remain low. No premium fees for content creators just to "keep up with the Jones" in terms of speed of delivery. No exclusive deals between broadband providers and big content providers like Disney that keep little guys out. The Internet playing field remains somewhat level (for delivery of content), and that fosters competition and innovation.

The telcos/cables like to argue cost. Fair enough. Building tomorrow's superhighway costs money. Billions. But there are other options to finance infrastructure besides allowing the builders additional control over content. All those other countries with much higher broadband penetration (and higher broadband speed) have figured it out. Why can't we?

Net Neutrality FUDraker of the Day

... is Christopher Wolf, co-chairman of the Hands Off The Internet coalition. Chris wins for this fine piece of FUD:

“The fact is that Internet neutrality regulations would be a direct financial hit to consumers and stop cold the country’s progress in providing affordable high-speed options."

Fact? Interesting use of the word. Net neutrality would stop our country's progress in providing affordable, high-speed Internet access. Is that a fact?

Well . . . maybe in the US where a few companies essentially control broadband access for most Americans. But is it a "fact" in all countries? No. According to the OECD, there are 11 countries with greater broadband penetration than the US. Net neutrality has not been a problem for them, though it governs data packet delivery in all these countries. They have managed to invest in broadband (often delivering speeds much faster than available in US) and make it affordable for a higher percentage of their citizens.

OECD Broadband Statistics
December 2005

Country: Broadband Penetration (% of inhabitants)

Iceland: 26.7
Korea: 25.4
Netherlands: 25.3
Denmark: 25.0
Switzerland: 23.1
Finland: 22.5
Norway: 21.9
Canada: 21.9
Sweden: 20.3
Belgium: 18.3
Japan: 17.6
U.S.: 16.8
U.K.: 15.9
France: 15.2
Luxembourg: 14.9
Austria: 14.1
Australia: 13.8
Germany: 13.0
Italy: 11.9
Spain: 11.8

Source: OECD

For trying to blind people with his "facts," Chris Wolf is our FUDraker of the Day.

FUDrakers on Net Neutrality

I propose a new, honorary title for the purveyors of net neutrality FUD on behalf of the telco/cable companies -- FUDrakers. It refers to those who throw FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) into the net neutrality debate.

Today's top FUDraker ... Tom Tauke, Verizon's Executive Vice President of
Public Affairs, Policy and Communications.

Here's a choice sample of his FUD delivered while testifying yesterday before the Senate's Commerce Committee hearings on telecom legislation:

"Radical net neutrality proposals would chill the investment climate for broadband networks, deter and delay broadband rollout, and lock in today's Internet architecture and levels of performance ... Now is not the time to adopt new regulations that throw sand in the gears of the fast-growing and changing broadband marketplace."

Is there a single person not in the pay of a telco/cable company who believes that the Internet's development over the past 20 years--during which net neutrality has been the governing rule since Day 1--has been anything but rapid and endlessly innovative?

For that matter, other countries like Iceland, South Korea, Netherlands, Denmark and Switzerland have achieved much higher broadband penetration than the US. They are the world's Top 5 in broadband penetration according to OECD data. The U.S. is #12.

Think that's bad? In 2000, the US ranked #3. In 2001, it dropped to #4. At the end of 2005 it was #12, all according to the OECD.

Less penetration, but we're faster right? Wrong. Top cable modems in the US deliver five megabits per second. Broadband connections in countries like Japan and South Korea are often 20 times faster.

Net neutrality has not stopped these countries from bringing faster broadband to their citizens, at speeds much higher than commercially available in the US.

Do Korean companies simply have more money to invest in broadband than Verizon and AT&T? Or is there something else going on here?

Talk to me FUDrakers. I've got my digital FUDflap in place.

Net Neutrality Bill OK'd by House Committee

Breaking news ... the House Judiciary Committee approved the Sensenbrenner bill in a 20-13 vote -- 14 Democrats + 6 Republicans voted in favor. Roll call noted by Raw Story here. Full text of bill is here. Pertinent provisions:

Sec. 28.(a) It shall be unlawful for any broadband network provider--

(1) to fail to provide its broadband network services on reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms and conditions such that any person can offer or provide content, applications, or services to or over the network in a manner that is at least equal to the manner in which the provider or its affiliates offer content, applications, and services, free of any surcharge on the basis of the content, application, or service;

(2) to refuse to interconnect its facilities with the facilities of another provider of broadband network services on reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms or conditions;

(3)(A) to block, to impair, to discriminate against, or to interfere with the ability of any person to use a broadband network service to access, to use, to send, to receive, or to offer lawful content, applications or services over the Internet; or

(B) to impose an additional charge to avoid any conduct that is prohibited by this subsection;

(4) to prohibit a user from attaching or using a device on the provider's network that does not physically damage or materially degrade other users' utilization of the network; or

(5) to fail to clearly and conspicuously disclose to users, in plain language, accurate information concerning any terms, conditions, or limitations on the broadband network service.

(b) If a broadband network provider prioritizes or offers enhanced quality of service to data of a particular type, it must prioritize or offer enhanced quality of service to all data of that type (regardless of the origin or ownership of such data) without imposing a surcharge or other consideration for such prioritization or enhanced quality of service.

We now have a turf battle within Congress between different committees, all claiming jurisdiction over the net neutrality issue, and all keen to keep themselves in the game on an issue whose political profile is rising.

The driver for the Judiciary Committee's effort is the antitrust impact of removing net neutrality, which has defined the Internet for the past 20 years. Net neutrality has been the status quo for the Internet, and has proven to be highly pro-competition as witnessed by the endless websites, e-commerce, P2P communities, blogs and e-services that now exist.

In the beginning, there was net neutrality. And it was good.

Can anybody seriously argue that net neutrality has not been a key element of the growth and competitiveness of Internet activity?

FUD Master or Fool?

As readers of this blog know, I rarely if ever get personal or confrontational about the technology issues discussed here. But occasionally an exception is needed to prove the rule ...

Today that exception is Steven Titch, Senior Fellow for Information Technology and Telecom Policy at the Heartland Institute (another one of those manipulative, Orwellian, heart-rendering names).

Mr. Titch writes about The Dangers of Dictating Procurement for the June issue of IT&T News, a newsletter on technology issues targeting state legislators and regulators.

Titch begins by describing Massachusetts' decision about OpenDocument Format as a decision about "open source software format." He then proceeds to talk almost exclusively about the evils of open source software. Sadly, he stubbornly repeats the mistake here just yesterday. All of which begs the question: Is Steven Titch a fool or merely a proliferator of FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt)?

Simply put: Mr. Titch, do you know the difference between a standard and software?

In its decision about OpenDocument Format (ODF), Massachusetts was addressing the choice of document formats, and chose to migrate to an open standard for them. This is a decision about standards, not software. It is not a decision that dictates open source software over proprietary software. Massachusetts is not mandating any kind of software.

In a nutshell, the difference is that open standards are a technical specification (or blueprint) while open source refers to software (which uses those blueprints, like other software can). It isn't that difficult. Anyone, any company, any solution can use a truly open standard. That is the point of having an open standard.

There are serious issues to debate on standards, and ODF and Microsoft's XML format. This blog has not been shy to highlight weaknesses, for example, of ODF here.

It is worrisome that decision-makers within state governments are getting such awful, misleading and short-sighted advice from a so-called "analyst."

Net Neutrality and FCC Politics

To date, what little authority exists behind net neutrality has been held by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). However, the FCC is a political creature, and net neutrality is tangled up in its politics.

Right now, the FCC is evenly divided between Democrat and Republican commissioners. By political necessity, companies needing FCC approval for mergers must negotiate with both sides of the FCC, and net neutrality has been at issue. Last year, approval of the SBC - AT&T and Verizon - MCI mergers included a requirement that net neutrality remained in place ... for two years. Why only 2 years? Verizon lobbied aggressively to ensure that net neutrality would sunset after 30 months.

Now we start to understand why this year telco/cable CEOs began signaling their intent to eliminate net neutrality and begin discriminating among content, delivery and pricing in Internet services. Next year they will be free of their net neutrality "chains."

Other than adding limited net neutrality conditions to merger approvals, the only other FCC "authority" behind net neutrality is a set of non-binding principles. Hardly comforting since FCC Chairman, Keven Martin, disfavors regulating the issue.

That cold comfort gets downright frigid when you consider industry statements. While certain cable/telco CEOs pledge not to block or degrade content, other telco representatives argue that those sunset provisions were only meant to address "anomalies" arising during the merger. Translation: net neutrality has been an anomoly that will be "corrected" shortly.

So where does that leave net neutrality at the FCC?

Many suggest letting the FCC deal with the issue on a case-by-case (merger-by-merger?) basis. But the FCC has thrown net neutrality only a 2-year life line. And time is running out, as the telco/cable companies intended.

The blatent weakness of current net neutrality guarantees is now recognized in Congress. Witness the bi-partisan bills on net neutrality in the House and the Senate. Apparently, it is also dawning on some at the FCC that net neutrality is a serious issue of fair competition. Yesterday, FCC Commissioner Michael Copps pubicly stated that the FCC should issue enforceable regulations guaranteeing net neutrality. Copps called net neutrality rules "essential." Former FCC Chairman, Reed Hundt, agrees.

Net neutrality looks like an antitrust issue. Is bundling content with Internet service delivery (when content providers cut exclusivity deals with Internet service providers) so different from Microsoft bundling its browser with its Office Suite?

Both effectively squash competition. For the Internet, other content will still be delivered, but much slower. In the Microsoft case, other browsers could still be used (maybe), but they would not work as well or as fast.

Tomorrow, the House Judiciary Committee will vote on a bi-partisan bill that would punish net neutrality violations under federal antitrust laws. We shall see how far net neutrality has come since the last Congressional committee vote on the subject.