Encourage UK PLC to use Open Standards

Do you remember that total Jerk Dennis Byron? The chap who thought that Digistan was some sort of terrorist organisation? Well here’s a rather nicely ironic way to shove his ignorant and frankly stupid views in that familiar place where “the sun doesn’t shine”.

A fellow colleague on the blogosphere, Russell Ossendryver, sent me an email linking to a recent on-line petition instigated by John McCreesh (of OpenOffice.org) on 10 Downing Street’s petition engine.

Basically it calls for the UK Government to:

(1) Procure only information technology that implements free and open standards;

(2) Deliver e-government services based exclusively on free and open standards;

(3) Use only free and open digital standards in their own activities.

as adopted and proclaimed by the founders of the Digital Standards Organization in The Hague on 21 May 2008.

That sounds like a fine idea to me! It would save the country literally hundreds of millions of pounds just for starters.

There are some particularly interesting names already on the list of signatories:

Mark Taylor (Open Source Consortium), Chris Puttick (CIO for Oxford Archaeology), Glyn Moody (Journalist and Open Source Commentator: http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com), and Ian Lynch (of INGOTS fame).

I’ve signed it. If you think that Open Standards are important (and you SHOULD if you are reading this!) then what are you waiting for? Click here and register your opinion.

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