Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New Hampshire on the cusp of enshrining software freedom into law

libreboot.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 111 posts

Re: New Hampshire on the cusp of enshrining software freedom into law

#71

Post by t0suj4 »

Dalewyn wrote: post #55
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people of New Hampshire and the United States have voted to protect free speech including by people who live outside of the state and the union. Corporations from other states and countries who don't like this bill make use of that. Proponents can too.

Your right to free speech ends where their right to free and fair elections begins. There is nothing fair about a state vote corrupted by voices outside of the state, let alone outside of the country.

I remember my mother telling me a story of how she was dragged for interrogation after undercover cops overheard her and her friend talking about political situation in communist Poland.

It's a dangerous territory you're trying to propose.

Re: New Hampshire on the cusp of enshrining software freedom into law

#72

Post by default-kramer »

leereeves wrote: post #31
cjpearson wrote: post #9

That price is going to scare away most voters. $1000 per citizen for something that few people care about. You could argue that the cost estimation is a worst-case scenario. It assumes that 90% of the affected software will be made compliant, but it's also possible that they just use proprietary exception for most applications. It would cost much less in that case, but it would do so by abandoning the purpose of the…

> $1000 per citizen How did they reach that figure? $1.4 billion dollars seems like far too much. Edit: Interesting. Their methodology talks about rewriting all the state's public-facing server side applications to be open source. (Hence the cost.) I thought the bill was just requiring that the public be able to use libre browsers and apps on their own devices to access state services, not that the state's server cod…

I don't think the bill requires the server side to be open source. I think it is sufficient as long as the client side can use libre software to interact with the government. (But this is not explicitly stated in any of the links I followed.)

Another comment mentions fillable PDFs not working in non-Adobe software. This seems like the most likely culprit to me. And in general, if someone has to go back over the entire surface area of an application and re-test everything to find all the quirks like this, I can start to understand how that huge cost estimate might make sense.

Re: New Hampshire on the cusp of enshrining software freedom into law

#73

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

impossiblefork wrote: post #12
imoverclocked wrote: post #4

> … alongside the rest of humanity in a collective development effort, as opposed to the alternative where we would be restricted by companies like Microsoft or Apple, who only care about controlling us to make money. I was optimistic until I read this sentence. So, does this bill mean that products like MS Office can’t be used in schools because it would force students to use proprietary software? Is it just targeti…

>So, does this bill mean that products like MS Office can’t be used in schools because it would force students to use proprietary software? Is it just targeting websites that use extensions that are only usable in a certain browser? Wouldn't that be sensible though? If the software is gratis and FOSS, then all the children can use it in whatever context they want. This is not true for MacOS or Windows. People may not…

It would be quite sensible.

If a private company tricked your school into training you on their stack... that's not an education, it's an ad (and corruption to boot). If you job wants to use MATLAB, they can train you on MATLAB. Your python/octave/whatever skills will transfer.

Re: New Hampshire on the cusp of enshrining software freedom into law

#74

Post by whateveracct »

Dalewyn wrote: post #55
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people of New Hampshire and the United States have voted to protect free speech including by people who live outside of the state and the union. Corporations from other states and countries who don't like this bill make use of that. Proponents can too.

Your right to free speech ends where their right to free and fair elections begins. There is nothing fair about a state vote corrupted by voices outside of the state, let alone outside of the country.

This feels more like an identity-politics-adjacent opinion. I don't think it's as unarguable as you're acting like to say that such a thing is corrupt. It's at worst an open question.

Re: New Hampshire on the cusp of enshrining software freedom into law

#75

Post by whateveracct »

giantg2 wrote: post #42
leepowers wrote: post #32

DoIT estimates the project will take at least 5 years to make the necessary changes resulting in a total state general fund cost of approximately $1.47 Billion .... Total Annual Cost $293,894,620 The Department states historically the cost of implementing a new application, whether replacing an existing application or implementing applications where none existed before, is three to seven times the cost of purchasing…

I'll be downed hard for this, but... If it doesn't provide any benefits, then this is a philosophical change. Seems almost like a case for separation of church and state.

Philosophy and ideals are a perfectly fair argument when it comes to legislation like this. Even if it doesn't pass the MBA sniff test.

Re: New Hampshire on the cusp of enshrining software freedom into law

#76

Post by snvzz »

>16 February 2023, 1PM: prohibiting, with limited exceptions, state agencies from requiring use of proprietary software in interactions with the public (house bill: HB 617-FN)

Seems pretty basic to me. What's concerning is that it isn't already law everywhere.

Re: New Hampshire on the cusp of enshrining software freedom into law

#77

Post by imoverclocked »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #73
impossiblefork wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So, does this bill mean that products like MS Office can’t be used in schools because it would force students to use proprietary software? Is it just targeting websites that use extensions that are only usable in a certain browser? Wouldn't that be sensible though? If the software is gratis and FOSS, then all the children can use it in whatever context they want. This is not true for MacOS or Windows. People may not…

It would be quite sensible. If a private company tricked your school into training you on their stack... that's not an education, it's an ad (and corruption to boot). If you job wants to use MATLAB, they can train you on MATLAB. Your python/octave/whatever skills will transfer.

I agree in spirit but not in practice.

I used to think everybody using Matlab thinks like a programmer. The problem is that many people who use Matlab are something else first. Matlab is just the tool available to them that has a very specific set of functionality and a GUI to make it somewhat accessible. Octave is a great piece of software but I stopped championing for others after knowing enough scientists that just want to use a library for a minute that only works in Matlab because of some quirk or special function that doesn't exist in Octave.

Another reason this doesn't quite work in practice is the interview. Imagine, potential employer asks if you have ever used Matlab. Two potential responses here: 1) No, I've used octave though. 2) Yes.

Both are good answers but, convince me the typical employer wants to hear 1 over 2.

Re: New Hampshire on the cusp of enshrining software freedom into law

#78

Post by defrost »

imoverclocked wrote: post #77
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be quite sensible. If a private company tricked your school into training you on their stack... that's not an education, it's an ad (and corruption to boot). If you job wants to use MATLAB, they can train you on MATLAB. Your python/octave/whatever skills will transfer.

I agree in spirit but not in practice. I used to think everybody using Matlab thinks like a programmer. The problem is that many people who use Matlab are something else first. Matlab is just the tool available to them that has a very specific set of functionality and a GUI to make it somewhat accessible. Octave is a great piece of software but I stopped championing for others after knowing enough scientists that jus…

> many people who use Matlab are something else first.

Pretty much, they're lab techs, engineers, physicists, etc. who gather and work with data as a primary role more so than programmers.

> convince me the typical employer wants to hear 1 over 2.

I can't, typically they're indifferent and they'll even take someone who has worked mainly with R.

In my own experience a typical employer who asks about Matlab is seeking numerically competant employees to work with data, to create and look at plots and graphs, to run simulations, etc.

They're typically more concerned with a prospects potential to do the role than they are with the specific tools used in the past, and will generally ask if prospects think they can work with in house tools or about the cost of bring tools the prospect wants to use in house.

Re: New Hampshire on the cusp of enshrining software freedom into law

#79

Post by walterbell »

Dalewyn wrote: post #55
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people of New Hampshire and the United States have voted to protect free speech including by people who live outside of the state and the union. Corporations from other states and countries who don't like this bill make use of that. Proponents can too.

Your right to free speech ends where their right to free and fair elections begins. There is nothing fair about a state vote corrupted by voices outside of the state, let alone outside of the country.

Do New Hampshire residents read HN?

Re: New Hampshire on the cusp of enshrining software freedom into law

#80

Post by Dalewyn »

htag wrote: post #58
Dalewyn wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your right to free speech ends where their right to free and fair elections begins. There is nothing fair about a state vote corrupted by voices outside of the state, let alone outside of the country.

Are you aware of how common this type of behavior is? Where are you purposing to draw the line? Should we not even discuss local and state elections on the internet to prevent outside voices from swaying the views of voters? Should we not report on these elections? A free and fair election is about ensuring that eligible voters are informed, that they have access to the ballot box, and that those ballots are accurate…

It's fine to discuss others' affairs, but actually going as far as to contact state representatives (read: spam them) when you aren't their constituent over stuff like this is a subversion of democracy.

You may or may not like what's going on in New Hampshire, but if you aren't a New Hampshire resident with voting rights you don't get to have any say in their affairs.

Post reply on HN