EFNZ political party (was Re: [nzlug] Helen goes to Redmond ....)

[Jasper Bryant-Greene]

On Mon, 2007-03-26 at 13:39 +1200, Mark Foster wrote:
> if you havn't already, suggest you involve yourself in the NZ Open Source 
> Society - at least to bring them into the fray. They may well support your 
> venture.

I will get in touch.

> Incidentally, interesting you have chosen to look at the formation of a 
> whole new party for this cause.  Obviously theres a lot more to government 
> than Electronic Freedom.... still an interesting idea.

At the same time, IT is one of those areas that affects pretty much
everything a government does. A lot of government actions and policies
will involve some IT system built or implemented somewhere, and the idea
behind a new party is to ensure that not only are their IT policies
sound, but the execution of other policies does not involve wasted money
on proprietary systems etc.

> I personally take a slightly more moderate view of the argument for OSS in 
> government, for example. I believe in best-of-breed, be it Open Source or 
> otherwise.  In that respect your apparent policy on OSS In Government 
> actually appears to lock my point of view out.

As I mentioned, most of those policies are just some ideas thrown out by
me. Once there are some members, I'd look to develop the policies based
on the members' ideas. I think what I was trying to get across was the
"open standards" or file-formats idea, but that's for the party as a
whole to decide (once it exists :)

Cheers,
Jasper


> On Mon, 26 Mar 2007, Jasper Bryant-Greene wrote:
> 
> > Some time ago I threw together http://efnz.org.nz/ as an attempt to make
> > a difference in this area of NZ government.
> >
> > If I am able to get 500 financial members then this party can contest
> > the 2008 General Elections and we can try to make a difference, however
> > small.
> >
> > Our policies are listed on that site, however they are really just ideas
> > as we have no members yet. I am happy to throw together a wiki and/or
> > mailing list for policy development if anyone is interested in joining
> > the party.
> >
> > Feel free to reply on or off list if you have questions, ideas, comments
> > etc.
> >
> > Jasper
> >
> >
> > On Mon, 2007-03-26 at 13:10 +1200, Dirk Pilat wrote:
> >> While I agree with Raimund about the cynicism that we Germans feel
> >> towards our elected members, Germany's parliament has made some
> >> enlightened choices recently (maybe they are just listening to the right
> >> lobbyists, who knows):
> >>
> >> Conversion of Windows NT backend to Linux in the federal parliament
> >> (Bundestag) after a successful initiative to introduce Linux into the
> >> federal government (more info at bundestux.de)
> >>
> >> Placement of 100.000 photovoltaic systems on German roofs.
> >>
> >> Continuous development of an advanced public transport system and
> >> introduction of road toll for trucks on highways.
> >>
> >> I don't particularly like Germany and would never live there again, but
> >> their federal enviromental/OSS policies seem more enlightened then
> >> anything that an NZ government has come up with recently. I had high
> >> hopes in the appointment of David Parker to the Energy portfolio and had
> >> hoped that the Greens would be able to exert more pressure onto the
> >> government to improve NZ's atrocious energy policies, but alas, nothing
> >> has changed.
> >>
> >> Sorry, I'll stop ranting now.
> >>
> >> Dirk
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Raimund Eimann wrote:
> >>> I am originally from Germany. In Germany, politicians strictly do what they're
> >>> paid for (by "lobbyists"). As no one has the power to do anything about this
> >>> (a former chancellor pointed it out quite nicely: "I'm never going to give in
> >>> to the pressure of the street", although the people on the streets are those
> >>> he was supposed to represent), many Germans (including myself) have developed
> >>> a thick layer of sarcasm.
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> NZLUG mailing list NZLUG at linux.net.nz
> >> http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug
> > -- 
> > Jasper Bryant-Greene <jasper at albumltd.co.nz>
> > Album Limited
> >
> 
> _______________________________________________
> NZLUG mailing list NZLUG at linux.net.nz
> http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug
-- 
Jasper Bryant-Greene <jasper at albumltd.co.nz>
Album Limited
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