The Initiative for Software Choice

The Initiative for Software Choice was an industry lobby group concerned with government software policy. Wikipedia’s article on the initiative records its founding in May 2002 in response to international government interest in open-source software. This reference is independent of the coalition. The coalition is a subject of the account, rather than the author of these pages; its positions are distinguished from the neutral explanations of procurement, licensing and standards elsewhere in the reference.

According to Wikipedia, CompTIA chaired the initiative. The article marks that chairmanship statement as needing a citation, so it is presented here as Wikipedia’s account. CompTIA is the information-technology trade association described in Wikipedia’s separate article on the organization. Computerworld’s reporting also characterized the initiative as the association’s lobbying arm. These descriptions identify the institutional setting of the campaign without establishing who financed it or who controlled its decisions.

A stated aim and its policy subjects

Wikipedia quotes the coalition’s stated aim as committed to advancing the concept that multiple competing software markets should be allowed to develop and flourish unimpeded by government preference or mandate. That is an attributed statement of the coalition’s own purpose. It is not a conclusion that any purchasing policy produced that result, nor a rule adopted by this reference. The distinction matters because government preferences and mandates were themselves subjects of the argument.

The Open Data Format Initiative’s comparison of the campaigns listed the initiative’s principle headings as follows:

• Procure software on its merits, not through categorical preferences
• Promote broad availability of government funded research
• Promote interoperability through platform-neutral standards
• Maintain a choice of strong intellectual property protections

The headings connect purchasing rules with the licensing of publicly funded work, communication between systems and legal rights in software. Their wording was part of a campaign, so agreement over a general term did not establish agreement over its policy consequences. Merit could include a license’s conditions; broad availability could involve different rights for recipients; an open standard could raise questions about royalties. The policy questions page uses these subjects as an entry into the wider discussion while keeping the campaign’s wording attributed.

Published criticism and a counter-campaign

Wikipedia records free-software advocates’ claim that Microsoft founded the initiative; in a 2002 opinion column in The Register, Bruce Perens argued that the principles could restrict rather than widen software users’ choices, while the Open Data Format Initiative described a rival Sincere Choice campaign. These are attributed accounts of criticism, not findings about any company’s conduct. The competing argument emphasized users’ ability to set their own purchasing policies and the role of interoperability in making choice practical.

Wikipedia’s list of software lobbying groups includes organizations associated with both industry interests and free-software advocacy. The initiative therefore belonged to a larger policy setting in which participants disputed procurement preferences, software rights and the terms of standards. A description of that setting does not make their positions interchangeable. Each argument concerns a particular proposal or principle, and each remains the argument of the source that expressed it.

Episodes reported by publications

CIO’s report of the October 2005 Massachusetts hearing recorded a coalition letter criticizing the state’s move toward open document standards, without making that letter’s characterization a conclusion of this reference.

Nextgov’s 2006 report on OpenDocument recorded the coalition’s comments on a Massachusetts request for information about plug-ins or conversion options for office documents.

Computerworld’s account of the Texas hearing reported that the coalition gave testimony concerning Massachusetts’ progress with OpenDocument, and that the committee eventually dropped the open-formats proposal.

These reports concern policy participation: a letter, comments and testimony. They do not supply a complete organizational history, a verified list of participants or a financial account. The document-formats page explains the standards and government decisions involved. The world policy survey places procurement actions in their regional context. The subjects can be understood without adopting the coalition’s position or the criticism directed at it.