[00:01.020 --> 00:05.860]  Hopefully some more people will sort of float in as we go, but I'm going to get started because it's after 10.
[00:07.080 --> 00:08.440]  My name is Arjen Kamphuis.
[00:08.580 --> 00:08.900]  I'm Dutch.
[00:09.520 --> 00:21.900]  And over the last five, six years, I've worked in the Netherlands with a handful of other people to change basically national IT policy in the way our governments and public sector organizations buy and use IT.
[00:22.980 --> 00:27.380]  And I just wanted to share some of my experiences and maybe some people can use it to replicate.
[00:27.380 --> 00:27.460]  Okay.
[00:28.040 --> 00:31.820]  All the slides that you see will be put online directly after this presentation.
[00:32.480 --> 00:34.840]  And the last slide will show you the link where you can get them.
[00:34.900 --> 00:37.180]  And it's, of course, Creative Commons license.
[00:37.420 --> 00:38.420]  So my basic house rules.
[00:39.360 --> 00:43.700]  I understand now that if you want some privacy in this country, you need to travel with guns.
[00:43.880 --> 00:44.940]  So guns are fine.
[00:45.060 --> 00:46.140]  Just no nukes, please.
[00:47.400 --> 00:51.300]  Switch off any noise-making apparatus to mute.
[00:51.300 --> 00:55.820]  And as I was saying, all the slides are Creative Commons license.
[00:56.100 --> 00:57.460]  So you can have some fun with those.
[00:58.900 --> 00:59.360]  Right.
[01:00.820 --> 01:03.440]  This is my experience in the Netherlands.
[01:03.580 --> 01:07.540]  I'm now working with the UK Parliament and some people in Berlin and some other European countries.
[01:07.540 --> 01:08.820]  But it works in the Netherlands.
[01:09.260 --> 01:11.620]  And the Netherlands is part of the Coalition of the Killing.
[01:12.700 --> 01:21.100]  And we are one of the two countries in the world that still have the same political head when the Iraq War was started.
[01:21.120 --> 01:26.700]  So even if most of the basic democratic functions are lacking in your country, this can still work.
[01:26.840 --> 01:27.620]  That's the point.
[01:28.260 --> 01:29.380]  It takes a couple of years.
[01:29.580 --> 01:31.780]  Well, it took me and a handful of others a couple of years anyway.
[01:33.180 --> 01:36.220]  And you need to be resistant to being bought off once you get successful.
[01:36.760 --> 01:38.840]  And yes, there is a business model in there somewhere.
[01:40.160 --> 01:40.520]  Right.
[01:41.880 --> 01:43.080]  Now, policy documents.
[01:43.640 --> 01:55.440]  When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitled them,
[01:55.700 --> 02:01.800]  a decent respect for the opinions of mankind require that they should... the causes which impel them to the separation.
[02:02.240 --> 02:05.400]  These are the first words of the U.S. Declaration of Independence.
[02:05.800 --> 02:08.280]  If you're not familiar with it, it's on file in Washington, D.C.
[02:08.480 --> 02:08.880]  Have a look.
[02:10.260 --> 02:26.900]  And while I was researching this, actually, this is what I found from the U.S. Library of Congress, a decade old, that actually that policy document, which is a pretty good policy document as policy documents go, was actually inspired by a Dutch policy document,
[02:27.100 --> 02:37.540]  which was almost 200 years older, where the Dutch people declared themselves to be independent from their then ruler, the Spanish king.
[02:37.840 --> 02:42.960]  Also by saying, you know, you've messed up the situation so bad that we now declare ourselves independent.
[02:44.560 --> 02:50.880]  So, once again, the Dutch have made a policy document, and I'm going to be talking about that, and maybe, again, this may inspire some other people.
[02:51.720 --> 02:53.100]  Right, let's talk about computers.
[02:54.240 --> 02:57.140]  This is a decade old graph.
[02:57.180 --> 03:05.540]  I've upgraded a bit from Carnegie Mellon by Hans Moravec, and it plots how much computational power you get for a certain amount of money.
[03:05.740 --> 03:12.360]  This is all inflation corrected back to 97, so it's getting a bit hard to do now, but you see the point.
[03:12.360 --> 03:22.080]  So, for over 100 years now, we've been ramping up computational power per dollar, doubling every 18 to 14 months.
[03:22.260 --> 03:27.540]  And this has had a massive impact on everything we do, and we are.
[03:27.700 --> 03:31.920]  So, this is in the Netherlands how you do your groceries, one of our big grocers.
[03:32.480 --> 03:34.280]  You can do everything online now.
[03:34.480 --> 03:35.460]  This is how we bank.
[03:35.780 --> 03:37.020]  This is how we get our music.
[03:37.020 --> 03:45.660]  Well, you know, in Europe, actually, this is how we get our music, because in countries like Sweden and the Netherlands, downloading in a non-commercial context is actually legal.
[03:47.760 --> 03:52.900]  So, we have now neural network computers that can predict sports events better than most humans can.
[03:53.500 --> 03:55.620]  We have cars that are fully autonomous.
[03:56.280 --> 03:59.740]  This is the DARPA challenge that was recently done in an urban environment.
[04:00.820 --> 04:11.040]  And actually, last year, a guy got a PhD by, you know, thinking about the sort of human-machine relationships for a couple of years and predicting we would ultimately marry our robots.
[04:11.120 --> 04:21.280]  This was based on the fact that 80% of the Roomba owners, you know, the Roomba, the little robot vacuum cleaner, 80% of Roomba owners give their Roomba a name, which is quite sort of like a pet.
[04:21.280 --> 04:24.520]  Well, of course, the Roomba has no, you know, pretension to be intelligent.
[04:24.760 --> 04:29.860]  So, it's, you know, if you can spend four years thinking that up and get a PhD, it's lovely work if you can get it.
[04:30.080 --> 04:37.360]  And, of course, in one of the other rooms, but don't go there, we have, you know, local factoring.
[04:38.300 --> 04:45.040]  So, in policy terms, pretty much up to this day, policymakers tend to see computers as improved typewriters.
[04:45.760 --> 04:48.840]  And for a long time, that was, you know, fairly accurate.
[04:50.200 --> 04:52.700]  But really now, we have to think of them as much more.
[04:52.800 --> 04:57.000]  They are communication devices, especially allowing privacy, which is a good thing to have.
[04:57.220 --> 05:01.860]  They are the way we protest and we organize protests as citizens and as people.
[05:02.100 --> 05:08.600]  They are our factories, basically, because they're now becoming so small and so cheap with desktop manufacturing that they are becoming our factories.
[05:08.840 --> 05:14.420]  And, of course, there are some countries where we actually still vote on computers, and you poor bastards get it fixed.
[05:15.420 --> 05:20.440]  In the Netherlands, we now don't have computer voting anymore, thanks to one of the people running around here.
[05:21.280 --> 05:23.720]  And, of course, you can consider it to be a printing press.
[05:23.980 --> 05:27.660]  I want to elaborate on this a bit more because it's central to the rest of my story.
[05:29.400 --> 05:30.940]  IT is the new printing press.
[05:31.200 --> 05:35.300]  And there is no freedom of the press if all the presses are owned by a few organizations.
[05:35.440 --> 05:43.940]  If the software that runs the hardware that makes a computer a printing press is owned by a handful of corporations, then what does that tell you about freedom of the press?
[05:43.940 --> 05:44.000]  Yes.
[05:44.080 --> 05:48.080]  I want the freedom to choose between, you know, Papa Bear and Papa Bear Jr. here.
[05:49.380 --> 05:56.540]  So, in the EU, we have regulations that say no single corporation can own more than 30% of a certain media channel.
[05:57.220 --> 05:59.580]  Because we want diversity and we want choice.
[06:02.020 --> 06:08.440]  So, while in television and newspapers, we consider, you know, 30% a dangerous concentration, in the software space, it's a bit different.
[06:08.700 --> 06:12.840]  This is an example of an end-user license agreement.
[06:13.200 --> 06:18.400]  So, basically, Microsoft will sell you front page, which you can then use to produce very crappy websites.
[06:19.680 --> 06:23.060]  However, they do limit what you can say in those websites.
[06:24.020 --> 06:35.520]  So, imagine the Parker Corporation, you know, selling you a pen, but then the box that the pen comes in has a little sticker that says, you cannot use this pen to write negative things about the Parker Corporation or its affiliates.
[06:35.520 --> 06:38.040]  I mean, that would be, you know, weird.
[06:38.220 --> 06:41.140]  But in the software space, we consider this to be quite normal, actually.
[06:42.660 --> 06:44.680]  So, that's something strange going on.
[06:44.840 --> 06:50.560]  So, the normal way that governments have been buying and using IT is very much at the operational level.
[06:50.720 --> 06:51.920]  So, they're looking at the cost.
[06:52.080 --> 06:56.180]  They're looking at managing projects, you know, risk avoidance, all those things.
[06:57.140 --> 07:04.720]  But, because IT is becoming social and social for everything we are and everything we do, we need to look at other aspects of IT and basically other points.
[07:04.720 --> 07:09.740]  So, accessibility of information to everybody, not just to a few people who have bought certain software.
[07:10.100 --> 07:13.780]  You know, we want our processes that make the government to be transparent.
[07:13.980 --> 07:18.320]  We want, as citizens, we want to, you know, be able to have a look at them and see how they feel.
[07:18.400 --> 07:21.860]  Of course, we want our nation states to be independent from commercial corporations.
[07:22.300 --> 07:24.880]  Now, it may sound like a far away dream, but I think it's possible.
[07:25.020 --> 07:28.860]  And there's certainly something to strive towards, even if we never achieve it wholly.
[07:29.700 --> 07:41.980]  So, there's a whole bunch of reasons why you would, you know, you might like your government to not be totally dependent on technology vendors who, you know, are pushing stuff for their basic functions.
[07:42.200 --> 07:45.120]  So, you know, you just pick your thing that you like.
[07:45.980 --> 07:49.160]  Now, how I got into this was a bit of a coincidence.
[07:49.980 --> 08:00.420]  On January 1st, 2002, after I woke up from my stupor, I went to the National Railway, by Dutch National Railway website, to plan a trip, as I always do.
[08:01.660 --> 08:10.780]  And on that morning, instead of getting the normal planner, where you can, you know, you type in the city where you are, the city where you want to go, and it tells you, you know, when the train is going, and where it's going, and everything.
[08:11.880 --> 08:13.080]  I got this.
[08:13.400 --> 08:14.280]  And it's in Dutch.
[08:14.480 --> 08:16.580]  So, you know, it doesn't mean a lot to you, probably.
[08:16.940 --> 08:20.980]  But basically, it says, well, this website only works with Internet Explorer 4.0.
[08:22.360 --> 08:27.360]  If you don't have Internet Explorer 4.0, go here to download Internet Explorer 4.0.
[08:27.600 --> 08:29.120]  And I was using Red Hat Linux.
[08:30.580 --> 08:31.900]  So that was a bit of a bummer.
[08:31.980 --> 08:33.800]  So I couldn't access the website that day.
[08:33.960 --> 08:37.180]  It basically didn't let me in because I was using the wrong operating system.
[08:37.420 --> 08:45.100]  Now, at this time, in Europe, in Brussels, the European Union was doing their antitrust suit against Microsoft that was already going.
[08:45.220 --> 08:47.800]  Of course, in the U.S., they had already been convicted on appeal.
[08:48.760 --> 08:53.800]  So being a big user of public transport in the Netherlands, I was a bit pissed about this whole situation.
[08:54.000 --> 09:01.040]  So I wrote an angry email to the webmaster of the railway saying, look, you know, you can't force me to buy certain software to access your website.
[09:01.360 --> 09:04.620]  You guys are a public service, mostly paid for by my taxes.
[09:05.580 --> 09:08.080]  And, you know, I want access to this information.
[09:08.080 --> 09:09.560]  I think I have that right.
[09:10.660 --> 09:12.280]  And then I'd finished the mail.
[09:12.320 --> 09:13.200]  I was about to send it.
[09:13.260 --> 09:17.200]  And I thought, well, if I send it to the webmaster, that's, you know, just a technology guy.
[09:17.200 --> 09:19.680]  He probably doesn't have a say in any policy.
[09:20.000 --> 09:23.060]  So I need to put some people in the CC field.
[09:23.860 --> 09:33.480]  So I went to the parliament website, looked up all the email addresses of members of parliament who specialized in information technology areas from the various political parties.
[09:33.820 --> 09:41.240]  And then there were some other people like the minister for transport and his high commissioner and, you know, the national ombudsman and consumer groups.
[09:41.460 --> 09:45.980]  And so all in all, I had about 50, you know, emails in the CC field and then I quit because then it becomes spamming.
[09:46.640 --> 09:47.680]  And I sent that off.
[09:48.420 --> 09:53.820]  And if after a few days, I got a mail back from the railway that, oh, they had that many complaints and they were very sorry.
[09:54.000 --> 09:55.460]  And they were going to redo the website.
[09:55.640 --> 09:57.500]  And 17 days later, they relaunched the website.
[09:57.680 --> 09:59.600]  And then it was pretty much standards compliant.
[10:01.080 --> 10:02.060]  So that was nice.
[10:02.240 --> 10:03.540]  So then I could plan my trip again.
[10:03.540 --> 10:09.760]  But the really nice thing would happen is that one of the members of parliament emailed me back and said, look, I've been hearing about these kinds of things more and more.
[10:09.880 --> 10:12.740]  So, but I don't really, you know, get the gist of it.
[10:12.840 --> 10:17.340]  So would you please, you know, drop by someday and we can have a talk about it.
[10:18.020 --> 10:18.720]  So I did.
[10:18.920 --> 10:24.080]  And one talk, you know, became a series of talks and discussions and more people got involved.
[10:24.240 --> 10:32.360]  And over the summer, we wrote a parliamentary motion, sort of a proposal for a bill, basically, the first step in making something law.
[10:32.360 --> 10:37.980]  And on the 19th of November, 2002, that was adopted unanimously by the Dutch parliament.
[10:38.400 --> 10:40.280]  And it basically says two things.
[10:40.520 --> 10:44.340]  The first thing it says is the software market is not working as a proper market.
[10:44.460 --> 10:47.820]  It's not an open market where, you know, people can have free choices.
[10:48.100 --> 10:54.420]  And the second thing, the way to remedy this is for the Dutch government to use open standards and open-source software as much as possible.
[10:54.780 --> 10:57.540]  So, you know, we can have a more open market.
[10:57.740 --> 11:00.440]  Now, it's the second part that the thing is most famous for.
[11:00.440 --> 11:06.240]  But the first part basically says the current software market is not functioning properly, particularly in the desktop space.
[11:06.940 --> 11:14.800]  Now, Mr. Vendrick is a member of the Dutch Green Party, and he got his proposal adopted unanimously.
[11:15.020 --> 11:20.300]  Now, if you're a Dutch member of the Green Party, getting, you know, motions adopted unanimously is fairly rare.
[11:20.300 --> 11:25.840]  He has this one, you know, in a frame over his bed, because it's the only time in his career he got that.
[11:26.200 --> 11:27.840]  I think one of the few of his parties.
[11:28.900 --> 11:32.460]  So suddenly, it's the first guy on the left there.
[11:33.360 --> 11:35.340]  Suddenly, I was his best friend basically.
[11:35.600 --> 11:42.080]  And, you know, we'd be calling each other and I keep feeding him more data and nice examples to use and get press and stuff like that.
[11:42.080 --> 11:45.720]  And then other people got involved from other political parties.
[11:45.960 --> 11:51.300]  So we formed a little band and we kept feeding each other information and, you know, making noise in the media, kept the pressure up.
[11:52.200 --> 11:59.380]  And basically, what I was doing, I was helping these people to, you know, score political points, be visible in parliament in general and also within their own party.
[11:59.860 --> 12:03.700]  So, and as long as you keep doing that, that they will listen to you basically.
[12:04.660 --> 12:15.740]  And after about a year, we got to the point where me and a few other people who were helping these, these guys could just, you know, mail them questions to ask to the minister and then they would ask them.
[12:16.220 --> 12:19.100]  So we would just type up our questions in a little email, send them off.
[12:19.220 --> 12:27.100]  And then 48 hours later, we could watch the live stream video from parliament where they would be literally basically reading our emails to the minister for economic affairs.
[12:27.500 --> 12:28.480]  So that was very cool.
[12:29.660 --> 12:32.300]  Of course, we still had, we had no funding, no political mandate.
[12:32.440 --> 12:34.080]  It was just a bunch of people doing this.
[12:34.420 --> 12:42.240]  Now, depending on who you're talking to in the political spectrum, and this is sort of the old left-right model, which is, you know, becoming a bit antiquated, but it works.
[12:43.260 --> 12:48.920]  So depending on who you're talking to, you need to use different sort of political points to score.
[12:49.180 --> 12:57.720]  Now, if you're talking to the left wing of the political spectrum, you're talking about things like social inclusion and transparency of processes, vendor neutrality, stuff like that.
[12:57.800 --> 13:00.520]  You can be sort of a bit anti-company if need be.
[13:00.760 --> 13:04.920]  Now, lower cost is something that everybody likes, but it can be a difficult case to make.
[13:05.000 --> 13:10.320]  Certainly, when you're starting out in the migration process, you know, you need to invest first before you get something back.
[13:10.560 --> 13:13.000]  Open markets is also a good thing that everybody likes.
[13:13.140 --> 13:15.820]  I mean, nobody's really against, you know, the proper functioning of markets.
[13:15.820 --> 13:30.880]  And of course, local businesses, if you're talking about the Dutch VVD, which is sort of the more comparable to the British Conservative Party, they're focused on entrepreneurs, local business, stuff like that.
[13:31.140 --> 13:39.220]  Now, I've never really got good contact with the right wing of the political spectrum, but I would presume that national security would be an area for them.
[13:40.500 --> 13:48.600]  The Dutch phone tapping system is a proprietary software supplied by an Israeli company, stuffed with Mossad people.
[13:49.100 --> 13:53.220]  And it's plugged into the Dutch phone systems, and that allows the Dutch government to tap phones.
[13:54.280 --> 13:59.040]  But these systems have a management interface, so that from Israel, they can be managed.
[13:59.400 --> 14:02.260]  But that's an optical connection, 34 megabit.
[14:02.560 --> 14:07.660]  So you really have to wonder what kind of management they do, you know, over 34 megabit, symmetric optical.
[14:07.660 --> 14:14.360]  And of course, there are a lot of ideas that basically Israel is tapping all kinds of Dutch phones without the Dutch government knowing about it.
[14:15.380 --> 14:26.280]  Now, we kept basically on the case and kept following all kinds of government processes and projects to, you know, see if they would mess up, and we could sort of bring that to the attention of people.
[14:26.540 --> 14:29.000]  So in 2004, they seriously messed up.
[14:29.100 --> 14:35.700]  They tried to buy almost 150 million euros worth of desktop software, and they only talked to a single vendor.
[14:35.700 --> 14:38.400]  Now, in the EU, that's a big no-no.
[14:38.720 --> 14:48.300]  As soon as a government spends more than about 100 or 200,000 euros, you have to do, you know, a formal tendering process where various companies can bid on the contract.
[14:48.480 --> 14:49.540]  And they didn't do that.
[14:49.540 --> 14:51.820]  So that was really, really bad.
[14:52.620 --> 14:58.840]  And as luck would have it, there was a civil servant somewhere in the bowels of one of the ministry who was also very pissed off by this.
[14:58.840 --> 15:07.440]  And so he called us and basically leaked this information to us on December 10th, 2004.
[15:07.820 --> 15:12.680]  Now, of course, we immediately called some journalists in IT magazines and stuff like that.
[15:12.680 --> 15:14.780]  So the next day, the sites carried the story.
[15:15.040 --> 15:20.440]  And then, of course, over the weekend, we wrote questions to be asked to the minister.
[15:20.600 --> 15:28.040]  You know, why do you do a 150 million euro contract to a, you know, no bid to a convicted monopolist?
[15:28.100 --> 15:28.820]  What's going on here?
[15:29.160 --> 15:33.820]  And, of course, you know, we made Slashdot, and by December 17th, the contract was dead in the water.
[15:34.220 --> 15:36.940]  So somebody at Microsoft didn't get their Christmas bonus that year.
[15:36.940 --> 15:37.960]  So that was good.
[15:39.980 --> 15:43.400]  Now, the questions that were asked were quite severe.
[15:43.720 --> 15:50.860]  And on December 30th, the government, for the first time, basically, in answering these questions, admits that it was a problem.
[15:51.360 --> 15:53.340]  And, of course, we all know that...
[15:53.340 --> 15:54.600]  Ooh, that's some mail coming in.
[15:54.680 --> 15:54.880]  Anyway.
[15:57.620 --> 16:07.440]  We all know that if you have a problem, if you have an addiction, be it to whatever, you know, controlled substance or certain software, as long as you don't admit the problem that there's nothing to do.
[16:07.560 --> 16:16.220]  So this was a big break that the government says, we have a problem, and the adoption of open-source software and open standards is the way out of this.
[16:16.400 --> 16:19.480]  And they actually used words like vanderloch and monopolist and stuff like that.
[16:19.600 --> 16:23.560]  So this was a big breakthrough in basically building our case and building the dossier.
[16:23.840 --> 16:31.680]  So we were getting quite sort of a big stack of papers of failed projects and things that, you know, were either too expensive or the tendering process was done wrong.
[16:31.680 --> 16:38.320]  And we basically kept building and building and building the dossier to, you know, to make it something really that had some meat on it.
[16:38.880 --> 16:41.700]  Now, also at the local level, we were doing comparable things.
[16:42.720 --> 17:00.000]  The municipality of Groningen, which is a city in the north of the Netherlands, sort of in the center of this satellite photo here, they were about to do an enterprise contract renewal where they would, you know, again, tie themselves into five years of Microsoft desktops and exchange software.
[17:01.320 --> 17:05.520]  And we got tipped by one of their techie guys who wasn't very happy about that.
[17:05.640 --> 17:15.320]  And so drove up there and had a chat with some of the local government people and said, well, you know, basically, why are you buying this?
[17:15.440 --> 17:18.380]  And their first answer was, well, you know, we were advised to do so.
[17:18.520 --> 17:19.060]  Well, by who?
[17:19.180 --> 17:19.800]  Well, by the vendor.
[17:20.620 --> 17:21.240]  Ah, okay.
[17:21.360 --> 17:25.300]  So you're going to give somebody 1.5 million euros because they advise you to do so.
[17:25.780 --> 17:27.380]  Well, it was a bit strange.
[17:27.780 --> 17:31.160]  So we said, well, you know, what are you getting in terms of functionality?
[17:31.700 --> 17:35.900]  Are you going to, you know, type up better building permits with this new word processor you're going to buy?
[17:36.540 --> 17:37.780]  Or, you know, what's...
[17:37.780 --> 17:40.440]  Are you going to send faster emails with the new exchange server?
[17:40.580 --> 17:41.300]  What's going on?
[17:41.440 --> 17:42.620]  Why are you spending 1.5 million?
[17:43.000 --> 17:45.520]  Which, you know, in a city like that is actually a lot of money.
[17:46.460 --> 17:50.300]  So we said, well, you know, why just not spend it?
[17:50.360 --> 17:52.800]  Why just use the stuff you already have?
[17:52.900 --> 17:54.100]  Because they had licenses.
[17:54.340 --> 17:57.020]  They were all 2003 Windows XP.
[17:57.200 --> 17:59.180]  And that supported until 2010, 2011.
[17:59.180 --> 18:00.140]  So they were fine.
[18:01.000 --> 18:02.340]  So they said, okay, we'll do that.
[18:02.500 --> 18:04.780]  We'll just, you know, keep the money in our pocket, basically.
[18:05.620 --> 18:06.860]  Stick half of it in the bank.
[18:07.420 --> 18:10.680]  And half of it will hire a few people locally in our city.
[18:10.820 --> 18:14.240]  And this town has a lot of unemployment, you know, compared to the rest of the country.
[18:14.240 --> 18:16.220]  And so we'll create four new jobs.
[18:16.920 --> 18:21.520]  And those people will then spend four years figuring out a migration scenario.
[18:21.520 --> 18:23.060]  And we'll use half the budget for that.
[18:23.680 --> 18:24.800]  So that was a good idea.
[18:24.960 --> 18:29.600]  And then, you know, in 2010, we can either buy Microsoft stuff again.
[18:30.400 --> 18:30.800]  Fine.
[18:31.020 --> 18:33.680]  Which is what we otherwise would also do to manage your ready budgets.
[18:33.940 --> 18:39.400]  Or we can use the migration plan to migrate away from it all and not buy it ever again.
[18:39.660 --> 18:48.000]  And either way, whatever we do, the fact that we have such a migration plan will be a great, you know, way to negotiate good reduction on your contract cost, of course.
[18:48.280 --> 18:56.780]  Because you'll just, you know, put this big document on the table while you're negotiating with these guys and put a little Linux, you know, lapel pin and, you know, a mug and everything.
[18:56.880 --> 18:59.500]  And you say, okay, well, you know, we have here a migration plan.
[18:59.640 --> 19:00.820]  It's fully tested.
[19:00.880 --> 19:02.980]  So, you know, and this software is free.
[19:03.140 --> 19:03.560]  What's your offer?
[19:03.900 --> 19:11.880]  And, of course, we saw in Munich a couple of years ago that the cost reduction you can get on your contract can be as high as 150%.
[19:12.420 --> 19:13.280]  So that's nice.
[19:14.900 --> 19:17.940]  They are that scared for European cities migrating.
[19:18.880 --> 19:19.600]  This was another.
[19:19.740 --> 19:22.100]  This is the province of Groningen, which is sort of the area around it.
[19:22.260 --> 19:24.740]  A larger, more comparable to like the U.S. state.
[19:26.280 --> 19:28.440]  And it has a new, it had a new IT plan.
[19:28.560 --> 19:31.700]  And the only thing it said about open-source was there is no support for open-source.
[19:31.820 --> 19:32.960]  And this was in 2006.
[19:34.760 --> 19:43.400]  And then, you know, we did some stuff and made sure that they had all these wonderful buzzwords that you see at the bottom of the slide in there.
[19:43.600 --> 19:49.160]  Now, the difference between the two is that four people went up there and each talked for four minutes to the provincial council.
[19:49.360 --> 19:49.780]  That was it.
[19:49.860 --> 19:50.600]  That was the intervention.
[19:51.000 --> 19:56.960]  Now, it takes a day to, you know, prepare that four minute speech because you really have to, you know, get it right the first time.
[19:58.080 --> 19:58.900]  But that's it.
[19:59.040 --> 20:00.260]  That was all that was required.
[20:00.440 --> 20:03.740]  We basically explained to them, look, why are you sending all this money abroad?
[20:03.900 --> 20:06.520]  Why are you tying yourself into a single vendor?
[20:06.660 --> 20:08.140]  You know, what's the advantage for you?
[20:08.440 --> 20:10.960]  And it was simply something they had never considered.
[20:11.640 --> 20:12.520]  It was as simple as that.
[20:12.880 --> 20:17.200]  And so we got a new policy plan was made by order of the council.
[20:17.380 --> 20:19.640]  And it says, okay, we're going to be using open office.
[20:19.800 --> 20:21.100]  We're going to migrate to open standards.
[20:21.460 --> 20:23.960]  We want to, you know, local knowledge economy.
[20:24.120 --> 20:26.560]  We want to, all the proper buzzwords were in there.
[20:26.560 --> 20:27.560]  So they're now doing it.
[20:28.500 --> 20:30.880]  So then in 2007, we had elections.
[20:31.940 --> 20:37.560]  And we had a new economy, a new cabinet, and a new minister for economic affairs.
[20:38.240 --> 20:39.380]  And so this is him.
[20:39.440 --> 20:39.900]  He's a young guy.
[20:41.080 --> 20:43.140]  Fairly short political career before this.
[20:43.280 --> 20:46.140]  So still, you know, knows what the outside world looks like.
[20:46.220 --> 20:48.860]  Not totally messed up by the political system yet, anyway.
[20:50.600 --> 20:56.660]  And he happened to be a personal friend of one of the members of parliament that we had been mailing and talking with about five years.
[20:56.820 --> 20:58.180]  So a meeting was set up.
[20:58.440 --> 21:07.380]  And, you know, we decided to, instead of working with opposition parties and through parliament, we wanted to talk to the minister directly, because that might be a lot more effective.
[21:08.340 --> 21:09.340]  So we did.
[21:11.160 --> 21:14.280]  So the first meeting with, you know, somebody with actual power.
[21:14.460 --> 21:18.260]  Also for us, a big moment, moving up the political food chain, basically.
[21:18.700 --> 21:20.760]  And we prepared this very intensively.
[21:20.840 --> 21:22.600]  We took days and days and days planning this meeting.
[21:23.760 --> 21:28.100]  Because, you know, for most of us, software might be a very interesting and important thing.
[21:28.540 --> 21:31.520]  For the economics minister, it's not the major thing.
[21:31.720 --> 21:35.900]  If the Saudi ambassador knocks on the door and says he wants to talk about oil, you're out.
[21:35.900 --> 21:37.640]  So, you know, you might have a meeting.
[21:37.900 --> 21:39.740]  You might have a 45-minute time slot.
[21:40.220 --> 21:42.240]  But it may be cut short at any time.
[21:42.240 --> 21:44.360]  So you need to get your basic points in there fast.
[21:44.680 --> 21:45.860]  And use pretty pictures.
[21:46.260 --> 21:49.180]  And, of course, not just talk about problems, but talk about solution.
[21:49.340 --> 21:51.660]  Make it attractive to do something rather than nothing.
[21:51.700 --> 21:55.660]  Because doing nothing is the default position of most democratic people.
[21:55.940 --> 21:59.580]  Now, you can give these people a lot of information in short time.
[21:59.660 --> 22:00.640]  They tend to be smart people.
[22:00.800 --> 22:01.780]  Well, at least this one is.
[22:02.500 --> 22:04.000]  Again, your mileage might vary.
[22:06.100 --> 22:09.700]  And we did, of course, a massive information package for his support staff.
[22:09.880 --> 22:11.820]  Who had a lot more time to spend with us than...
[22:11.820 --> 22:13.760]  Because the minister only had 35 minutes for us.
[22:13.900 --> 22:17.200]  Because he had, you know, 14 other items on his agenda that day or something.
[22:17.560 --> 22:21.360]  But his staff, you know, the IT people that are advising him, had a lot more time for us.
[22:21.460 --> 22:25.200]  So we hung around at the ministry and spent basically the afternoon talking to them.
[22:25.460 --> 22:26.080]  That was great.
[22:27.260 --> 22:29.340]  So I'm going to show you some of the pictures we used.
[22:29.520 --> 22:31.220]  This was... our graphics guy made this.
[22:31.480 --> 22:37.840]  This is the amount of money that the Netherlands every year sends to the United States to pay for software licenses.
[22:38.620 --> 22:41.500]  This is about 1% of our gross national product.
[22:41.800 --> 22:44.120]  We are a very small country of 16 million people.
[22:44.660 --> 22:49.460]  So this is 1% of our gross national product we sent to the U.S. to pay for software licenses.
[22:50.000 --> 22:56.100]  Now, this represents between 50 and 100,000 jobs that we don't have in the Netherlands.
[22:56.100 --> 23:00.300]  And we strive to be a knowledge economy and high-tech and everything because of the way we do software.
[23:00.540 --> 23:05.800]  And most of the software, of course, is, you know, not super special things.
[23:05.800 --> 23:15.900]  It's, you know, plain vanilla generic things like operating systems and then word processors and, you know, simple databases for low-end websites, stuff like that.
[23:16.860 --> 23:19.420]  So this can be done, you know, differently.
[23:20.420 --> 23:28.480]  So an economics minister is not interested in software, but he is interested in creating 100,000 jobs while keeping the IT budgets constant.
[23:28.640 --> 23:29.500]  That's a good story.
[23:30.080 --> 23:34.760]  So this is another thing, image I used to explain what open standards is.
[23:34.780 --> 23:35.580]  It's a common language.
[23:35.880 --> 23:40.020]  You know, if you want to do complex projects, you need to have a common language to exchange information.
[23:40.600 --> 23:47.280]  And, of course, 6,000 years ago, there was a big building project somewhere in the area where Baclot is now, probably.
[23:47.720 --> 23:52.500]  And, you know, somebody decided that they shouldn't finish the project.
[23:52.500 --> 23:55.340]  And so he made sure they couldn't understand each other anymore.
[23:55.480 --> 23:56.220]  And things didn't happen.
[23:56.360 --> 23:57.980]  And so the project failed.
[23:57.980 --> 24:02.420]  So having a common language, open data standards, to exchange information is central.
[24:03.880 --> 24:07.760]  Now, an example of an open standard is not this boat, but it's the blue boxes on top.
[24:07.780 --> 24:08.800]  It's the shipping containers.
[24:09.120 --> 24:11.940]  A shipping container you can think of as a sort of an open standard.
[24:12.260 --> 24:16.940]  You can use it to pack various things, whether it be tree trunks or a data center or anything else.
[24:17.100 --> 24:19.540]  And you can stick it on various modes of transportation.
[24:19.900 --> 24:22.420]  But it's the container that is a universal standard.
[24:22.520 --> 24:25.580]  And nobody owns the specs to the container, to the best of my knowledge, anyway.
[24:25.580 --> 24:30.500]  And this allows you to be very flexible in global transport.
[24:30.720 --> 24:37.220]  Because the guy filling the container doesn't have to know what kinds of transport methods are being used.
[24:37.420 --> 24:40.680]  And the people transporting the container don't care about the contents.
[24:40.900 --> 24:43.680]  So it becomes a very flexible system.
[24:43.680 --> 24:49.940]  And I've heard logistics experts say that without standardized container shipping, modern globalization probably would not be possible.
[24:50.780 --> 24:52.600]  And this is sort of how the Internet works too.
[24:52.820 --> 24:53.840]  We have all these services.
[24:54.060 --> 24:56.060]  This is the stuff that the Internet does for us.
[24:56.220 --> 24:59.820]  Be it email or web browsing or voice over IP or a hundred other services.
[25:00.140 --> 25:05.020]  And we have all these devices that sort of, you know, allow us to actually interact.
[25:05.020 --> 25:08.560]  But it's the layer in the middle, the open standards, that's where the action happens.
[25:09.260 --> 25:18.540]  And as long as those standards are open and everybody can use them, then we can have billions of computers made by thousands of different vendors all interacting with each other.
[25:19.640 --> 25:25.940]  And so the middle layer of open standards, and this is just a few, of course, is where the success of the Internet is.
[25:25.940 --> 25:28.460]  So this is basically IT architecture for a beginner.
[25:28.680 --> 25:31.020]  The services, that's what politicians are always talking about.
[25:31.120 --> 25:32.020]  What does it do for you?
[25:32.380 --> 25:36.280]  And the devices and the software is what the tech people tend to talk about.
[25:36.460 --> 25:38.960]  But it's the open standards in the middle that actually make it happen.
[25:39.300 --> 25:42.700]  So that should be, you know, a part of the policy debate.
[25:43.340 --> 25:53.420]  Now this is a quick primer on what source code is and, you know, why it's good to have the source code as well as the binary, so you can actually study what a machine does.
[25:53.420 --> 26:05.040]  And in the example, for instance, of the phone tapping system, of course, it's nice if you're a sovereign nation, that you're not being tapped by another nation, but that you are yourself, you know, you have control of these systems.
[26:05.740 --> 26:08.660]  Now this is what happens in most organizations today.
[26:11.200 --> 26:14.240]  Hardware, the hardware part of the technology stack is fairly commoditized.
[26:14.340 --> 26:22.520]  So you have many companies that will sell you a PC or server and, you know, most of them do essentially the same at the same price point.
[26:22.520 --> 26:25.260]  And so it's a fairly open, well-functioning market.
[26:25.460 --> 26:26.880]  But then the trouble begins.
[26:26.980 --> 26:32.980]  Then we have, you know, operating systems, platforms, and then we have a middleware layer and applications and interface, and they're all tied together.
[26:33.660 --> 26:39.880]  So your knowledge is stuck in a SharePoint intranet, and therefore you need to have Windows on the desktop.
[26:40.380 --> 26:43.800]  So, you know, from the interface down, you're locked.
[26:43.800 --> 26:55.960]  And then, of course, the question becomes, if all these choices are made for you, instead of you being able to pick and choose yourself what tools you want to use for what purpose, then are you in control of your IT strategy, and therefore are you in control of your primary process,
[26:56.000 --> 26:59.980]  if your primary process is mostly doing things with information?
[27:00.600 --> 27:01.840]  Governments don't make anything.
[27:02.040 --> 27:03.480]  They push information around.
[27:03.600 --> 27:04.000]  That's what they...
[27:04.000 --> 27:07.400]  What they make is white paper with black ink, and every now and then a bit of color.
[27:07.400 --> 27:09.700]  I mean, as soon as you have a bridge built, you buy...
[27:09.700 --> 27:12.380]  You know, you hire a company to do the actual building.
[27:12.500 --> 27:14.040]  The government just writes up the paper.
[27:14.280 --> 27:16.360]  So information processing is their core function.
[27:16.560 --> 27:19.040]  And therefore, you know, this is a very bad situation.
[27:20.800 --> 27:24.780]  Now, I've been making these pictures also since about late 2001.
[27:25.180 --> 27:27.200]  If you do nothing, things will get worse.
[27:27.680 --> 27:33.600]  Because the financial incentive for software companies is to lock you down further and further, because that's the way they make the most money.
[27:33.700 --> 27:35.400]  It's very simple economic incentive.
[27:35.540 --> 27:36.240]  Anybody can get it.
[27:36.240 --> 27:38.440]  So if you do nothing, things will get worse.
[27:38.560 --> 27:39.860]  And I made this...
[27:39.860 --> 27:43.100]  The first version of this picture back in 2001.
[27:43.460 --> 27:46.160]  And then, of course, when Vista came out, that was basically it.
[27:46.620 --> 27:56.580]  You know, built-in DRM, goes all the way down to the hardware, and it locks your documents into a specific operating system, which is, of course, untenable for any government to be in that position.
[27:58.280 --> 28:07.300]  So what you should strive for is to have, you know, distinguished layers in the technology stack and to make sure you are in control of whatever layer is special.
[28:07.980 --> 28:10.520]  So there are two basic flavors of software in my perspective.
[28:10.760 --> 28:15.540]  There's commodity stuff, most of which is available open-source if you do a proper migration.
[28:15.900 --> 28:18.780]  Things like operating systems or databases and things like that.
[28:19.580 --> 28:22.100]  Or word processors, all those kinds of...
[28:22.100 --> 28:25.280]  All the stuff that everybody needs to, you know, to run an organization.
[28:25.280 --> 28:27.020]  And then there are special applications.
[28:27.220 --> 28:34.660]  For instance, the city of Amsterdam where I live has, you know, a whole software system to manage their sewer infrastructure.
[28:34.980 --> 28:40.920]  Now, that is a one-off special, you know, thing, because there's only one city on the planet that has this specific problem.
[28:41.100 --> 28:43.480]  So they, of course, should be in control of that software.
[28:43.660 --> 28:50.500]  I mean, it would be ridiculous if they had to rebuy software that was made for them for a fee, if they would have to rebuy it every three years.
[28:50.600 --> 28:58.380]  So they should be, you know, the owner of that intellectual property, have access to the source code, and then they can hire various parties to do upgrades or do support or whatever.
[28:58.860 --> 29:00.460]  And again, you get an open market for services.
[29:00.680 --> 29:07.260]  And that way, you retain control of your IT strategy and your primary processes, which is, of course, what this should be all about.
[29:08.260 --> 29:15.640]  Now, one of the things I learned is that it might be easier to separate the subject of open standards versus open-source.
[29:15.880 --> 29:20.240]  Open standards is a lot easier to explain to people why it's good than open-source.
[29:20.340 --> 29:21.760]  Open-source is dodgy.
[29:21.760 --> 29:28.580]  Also, because sometimes there are certain functionalities that governments need that aren't yet available as open-source software.
[29:28.700 --> 29:29.840]  And there are those functionalities.
[29:30.000 --> 29:31.680]  You have to look for them, but they're there.
[29:31.880 --> 29:35.360]  And then you have to say, well, okay, then use proprietary software.
[29:35.540 --> 29:46.600]  But please try to store the data that comes out of that application in an open format, so that in the future you can migrate away from it once open-source tools become available, or if you just want to migrate to something else.
[29:47.100 --> 29:51.540]  So, the Open Document Society was founded last year.
[29:51.740 --> 29:54.280]  And this is, of course, the open-source initiative in the Free Software Foundation.
[29:54.900 --> 29:59.200]  Now, open standards are easy, open-source is harder.
[29:59.380 --> 30:02.960]  I think they're both important, but sometimes you may need to sort of pick your battles.
[30:04.040 --> 30:13.740]  The Open Document Society was founded last year in the Netherlands, and it's a global group basically promoting open standards, chiefly the open document format.
[30:14.920 --> 30:16.320]  And we get more and more of these.
[30:20.280 --> 30:22.200]  So, we got the policy moving.
[30:22.480 --> 30:37.420]  We wrote it over the summer last year, and it was announced in September last year, and immediately a counter-lobbing effort was started by a bunch of proprietary companies, chiefly Microsoft and some of its Dutch business partners.
[30:37.580 --> 30:43.560]  We got phone calls from our contacts at the Economics Ministry saying, gee, what's going on here?
[30:43.640 --> 30:47.400]  You know, we got half a dozen of these lobbyists pretty much camped out downstairs.
[30:48.080 --> 30:48.680]  What's happening?
[30:48.720 --> 30:49.820]  We've never seen this before.
[30:49.980 --> 30:52.920]  This level of lobbying, this kind of commitment of resources.
[30:53.940 --> 30:59.640]  So, on December 12th, there was the final parliament debate where the motion would, or where the policy would be adopted or not.
[30:59.920 --> 31:01.080]  We were hoping it would be adopted.
[31:01.080 --> 31:06.760]  So, we were briefing ministers for briefing documents for all the members of parliament and for the minister.
[31:07.500 --> 31:19.820]  And we added additional proposals so that the debate in parliament would not be about the core of the policy, but would be about these additional proposals, which then probably we wouldn't get, but then the core of it would still go through.
[31:19.960 --> 31:21.080]  That was sort of the strategy.
[31:22.020 --> 31:23.200]  And of course, then we waited.
[31:23.680 --> 31:31.000]  We watched the video stream from the parliament on our laptops, which on a non-Windows machine takes a bit of doing, but it's possible.
[31:31.980 --> 31:38.220]  And then basically, we listened in amazement as members of parliament and the minister were reading our emails to each other.
[31:38.640 --> 31:39.760]  And that was very cool.
[31:39.760 --> 31:40.520]  Okay.
[31:40.520 --> 31:42.160]  So, the proposal was...
[31:42.160 --> 31:42.980]  Oh, there we go.
[31:43.160 --> 31:44.300]  The proposal was adopted.
[31:46.260 --> 31:48.640]  And these are the goals.
[31:49.840 --> 31:55.080]  The core of it is the government says we want intraoperability in the old public sector technology.
[31:55.100 --> 32:01.340]  So, we want all the little government departments and other schools and hospitals and all those things that are non-commercial entities.
[32:01.760 --> 32:05.860]  We want them to work together and to share data and to be easy to share data.
[32:06.020 --> 32:06.960]  So, this is the primary goal.
[32:07.220 --> 32:10.280]  Now, a sub-goal of that is we want to be less dependent on specific vendors.
[32:10.440 --> 32:16.760]  We want to choose, you know, who we deal with and who we give money to, to provide us with tools or services.
[32:17.160 --> 32:24.160]  And of course, you know, if we're spending all these billions and billions every year, we might as well make sure that it, you know, ends up in our own economy as much as possible.
[32:24.200 --> 32:25.660]  So, that's a third goal.
[32:25.940 --> 32:28.080]  So, this is, in essence, the whole thing.
[32:28.980 --> 32:36.760]  And the booklet you just saw, previous, I've actually linked this from our website.
[32:37.240 --> 32:45.700]  The whole policy document has been translated in English with the express intent that, you know, other people in other countries can basically use it and have some benefit from it.
[32:45.800 --> 32:49.380]  So, you can download that as a PDF, the booklet, and, you know, have a go.
[32:49.940 --> 32:51.000]  Now, some of the facts.
[32:51.900 --> 32:55.440]  Open document format is now mandatory in Dutch state government.
[32:56.320 --> 32:59.700]  Internal use will be mandatory at the end of next year.
[33:00.280 --> 33:03.100]  So, they now have to read it, then they have to start using it next year.
[33:03.420 --> 33:07.220]  The rest of the public sector, so that means things like local governments, 12 months later.
[33:07.500 --> 33:16.900]  So, next year on January 2nd, I can actually send a letter of protest to my local government, protesting the level of taxes on, you know, my house or something.
[33:17.060 --> 33:19.120]  And I can send that in open document format.
[33:19.120 --> 33:25.100]  And if they do not reply within 30 days, my protest, if it's, you know, proper formatted, will stand.
[33:25.300 --> 33:30.840]  So, I can say, look, you know, I don't think you guys did a very good job cleaning the streets, so I'm not going to pay my local tax.
[33:31.120 --> 33:37.060]  And if they don't respond, so if they can't read the open document format, then, you know, my protest stands and I don't have to pay tax.
[33:37.460 --> 33:42.580]  So, there are a bunch of people now who are going to have some fun on January 2nd with that, because not everybody, of course, is ready.
[33:43.780 --> 33:52.640]  Now, we asked for a few other things, like a study separate hardware and software pricing, and we asked the Dutch Antitrust Authority to investigate, basically, the Dutch software market.
[33:53.040 --> 34:11.540]  The Dutch Antitrust Authority has said that they see no indications that there are problems with the software market, which is interesting given that the European Antitrust Commissioner just gave Microsoft a two point something billion dollar fine, which is the highest ever in the history of the EU.
[34:13.020 --> 34:15.360]  Now, some bullshit stories have been spreading around.
[34:15.520 --> 34:17.560]  Some FUD have been spreading around about the plan.
[34:17.760 --> 34:19.820]  It makes open-source mandatory, which is not true.
[34:20.140 --> 34:24.720]  It's just you have to show that you need proprietary software if you spend money on proprietary software.
[34:25.120 --> 34:28.760]  You need to show that there isn't an open-source alternative, so you have to show you think about it.
[34:28.880 --> 34:33.100]  But if you can show that you need proprietary software for a certain function, that's absolutely fine.
[34:33.700 --> 34:34.960]  It forbids specific products.
[34:35.060 --> 34:35.920]  Absolutely not true.
[34:36.380 --> 34:41.040]  You can use, you know, any product you want, as long as you store your document in open document format, we're fine.
[34:41.040 --> 34:43.680]  If you want to use Pico to do word processing, that's fine.
[34:43.840 --> 34:48.060]  If you want to use Betamax tapes to store your data, that's fine too.
[34:48.180 --> 34:51.340]  It's just you have to use open standards as well.
[34:51.480 --> 34:54.340]  If you want to use additional standards, that's absolutely fine.
[34:55.260 --> 35:02.740]  Now, one of the big successes we've already had is that open document format is now a mandatory NATO standard.
[35:03.440 --> 35:12.260]  This is a direct consequence of this Dutch policy plan because some people at the Dutch Ministry of Defense basically got going with it and say, okay, we need to start supporting ODF.
[35:12.400 --> 35:15.180]  And then they said, well, we can only do that if we make it a NATO standard.
[35:15.320 --> 35:19.760]  So they started talking to other NATO partners and everybody was quite positive about it.
[35:19.920 --> 35:26.580]  So open document format is now actually a mandatory NATO standard and all NATO countries have to start supporting it as of next year.
[35:26.720 --> 35:32.940]  So this is one of our first really big, you know, concrete successes in terms of implementation.
[35:33.280 --> 35:33.760]  Very cool.
[35:33.860 --> 35:35.360]  Just got this a few days ago.
[35:35.360 --> 35:41.600]  Now, of course, lobby organizations like these are fighting back with massive resources.
[35:42.120 --> 35:45.760]  This is the group softwarechoice.org.
[35:45.900 --> 35:53.800]  It's a part of CompTIA, which is basically a lobby organization for a bunch of large proprietary software companies.
[35:54.040 --> 36:06.640]  And they are saying, well, we are in favor of choice too, because the government should be free to choose the business model, you know, the companies and the business model they have to, what the software is.
[36:06.900 --> 36:07.020]  Hmm.
[36:07.640 --> 36:08.680]  So that's another kind of choice.
[36:08.800 --> 36:18.000]  So what they think is the central issue is the business model of the vendor, not the freedom of choice of the people, you know, whose taxes are buying the software, but that's sort of the way they're doing it.
[36:18.100 --> 36:26.880]  Now, this is Nelly Kroos, Dutch former minister and former head of Nairo University, and it used to be personal friend of Bill Gates, actually.
[36:26.880 --> 36:34.000]  But she handed Microsoft a record fine last year, which, you know, paid for her office and her staff for quite some years, actually.
[36:34.400 --> 36:41.640]  Something in the order of 1.6 billion euros, which is like 2.5 billion dollars, I think, right now.
[36:41.860 --> 36:44.160]  So it's quite a significant chunk of money.
[36:44.280 --> 36:50.100]  And she recently stated in the Herald Tribune, among other places, that she thinks that using open standards is just a no-brainer.
[36:50.360 --> 36:51.940]  It's just a smart business decision.
[36:51.940 --> 36:57.500]  So when people at this sort of government level are saying it, there's a real change coming.
[36:59.520 --> 37:05.600]  Now, if we want that change in other places, because I'd love, you know, for more other countries to have this, people need to step up.
[37:05.720 --> 37:06.520]  You need to do something.
[37:06.640 --> 37:07.500]  You need to lead the charge.
[37:07.900 --> 37:12.140]  Because there are massive interests in preventing this change and slowing the change down.
[37:12.440 --> 37:15.520]  So if people don't lead the charge and become active, nothing happens.
[37:15.520 --> 37:23.220]  Because, you know, on the other side, there are a lot of well-paid lobbyists and people finance to make sure this change does not happen.
[37:23.220 --> 37:25.640]  Because a lot of money is being made by a lot of people.
[37:26.520 --> 37:28.800]  From, you know, your taxes, amongst other things.
[37:29.600 --> 37:32.740]  So you need to do something, because otherwise things go wrong.
[37:32.940 --> 37:35.040]  And it's like any other civil liberty, you know.
[37:35.220 --> 37:36.080]  Use it or lose it.
[37:36.200 --> 37:36.940]  It's that simple.
[37:37.560 --> 37:46.040]  If you think it's bad that you can't access government websites with, you know, a non-specific browser, if you're not active about it, things will get worse.
[37:47.400 --> 37:49.940]  Now, when you do this, you will be called an extremist.
[37:50.580 --> 37:54.380]  I've been called an extremist and an idealist and a lot of terrible swear words.
[37:55.300 --> 38:02.020]  For instance, when you say a multiple convicted monopolist is a multiple convicted monopolist, you will be called an extremist.
[38:02.260 --> 38:05.980]  But then again, all these people were called extremists at one time or another.
[38:06.780 --> 38:11.060]  You know, this guy was branded a terrorist in his days, of course, so was Gandhi.
[38:11.060 --> 38:20.280]  And Nelson Mandela was taken off the no-fly list actually last month because he was a member of the ANC and that is a terrorist organization.
[38:20.680 --> 38:24.380]  So, you know, maybe you can be in good company if you're called that.
[38:25.000 --> 38:26.260]  But Gandhi was right.
[38:26.480 --> 38:29.920]  It takes a bit of stamina and at first you'll be ignored and you'll be laughed at.
[38:30.080 --> 38:33.740]  Then you will be fought or they'll try to buy you off.
[38:34.820 --> 38:38.040]  So it's in the third phase that you know that you're getting somewhere, basically.
[38:38.040 --> 38:46.600]  If people start actively fighting you, you know, hiring lobbyists, or if they start offering you money to stop talking to these people in parliament, then you know you're really getting somewhere.
[38:46.720 --> 38:49.420]  And then, of course, you have to have the balls to say no to the money.
[38:51.180 --> 38:55.100]  They offered me some at some point, but you know, the price of my soul was a bit higher than that.
[38:55.220 --> 38:56.800]  So I thank them.
[38:57.420 --> 38:58.220]  And then you win.
[38:58.880 --> 39:11.800]  And then, of course, you have to, you know, go for the implementation, And you start talking to government people, and they will explain to you how difficult it is, why it can't be done, why it's so hard to use any other word processor than the one they've been using for 20 years.
[39:13.280 --> 39:20.500]  And there's a very nice story about Napoleon who was riding along with his generals in the south of France, and it was a hot summer day.
[39:21.540 --> 39:25.360]  Sun was shining and the horses were doing all the work, but everybody was sweating in their woolen uniforms.
[39:25.620 --> 39:38.180]  And Napoleon had an idea, and he said, look, we need to plant trees along all the roads in France, then the trees will grow, and they will provide shadow, and our troops can march in the shadow towards the battlefield, and they'll be much fitter when they get to the battlefield.
[39:38.420 --> 39:39.740]  And he thought it was a brilliant idea.
[39:40.100 --> 39:44.900]  And of course, all the generals, you know, didn't want to be put to work as gardeners.
[39:44.980 --> 39:48.940]  So they all started creating these excuses why it wouldn't work and couldn't be done.
[39:49.080 --> 40:00.800]  And of course, the Monsignor General said, well, Mr. Bonaparte, you do realize that if we plant these trees, then it will take 20 years for them to grow large enough to provide the shade that you're talking about.
[40:01.140 --> 40:03.280]  And Napoleon said, of course, I understand that totally.
[40:03.380 --> 40:05.080]  This is why I want you to start planting tonight.
[40:06.560 --> 40:15.720]  And the point is, if a problem is very big, and re-architecting the IT infrastructure of a national government is a very big thing, it takes a decade at least, possibly more.
[40:15.940 --> 40:18.000]  But that should never be an excuse not to start.
[40:18.780 --> 40:24.520]  Because, you know, the problem is not going to get smaller when you, you know, hold off on getting started with a solution.
[40:25.640 --> 40:27.100]  So this is what they always use.
[40:27.840 --> 40:36.560]  So we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all users are created equal, that they are endowed by hackers with certain unalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of content.
[40:37.220 --> 40:41.940]  And that to secure these rights, software is distributed among users deriving its powers from their consent.
[40:42.220 --> 40:57.020]  And that whenever any form of software becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the users to alter or abolish it, and to institute new software, laying out its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as for them shall seem the most likely to their safety and happiness.
[40:57.600 --> 41:06.820]  Now you can sort of see, you know, with a few minor edits, because I just did a search and replace on two words here, that one of your policy documents really works also for this problem.
[41:07.620 --> 41:10.020]  So I think it's a good way of looking at it.
[41:11.400 --> 41:12.980]  So I think hope lives eternal.
[41:14.300 --> 41:19.760]  I'm going to press the button on my CMS shortly, and these slides and some other stuff will be at these two URLs.
[41:20.200 --> 41:23.780]  And if anybody wants to get to work, please do.
[41:24.040 --> 41:26.880]  And if there are questions, you can either ask them now.
[41:27.060 --> 41:27.900]  We still have a bit of time.
[41:28.080 --> 41:30.060]  And I'm going to be here until Monday morning.
[41:30.240 --> 41:32.380]  So, you know, look me up or send me an email or whatever.
[41:32.640 --> 41:33.480]  Thank you for your attention.
[41:39.320 --> 41:41.640]  Can you go back to the page with the URLs?
[41:41.960 --> 41:42.360]  Sure.
[41:45.450 --> 41:46.550]  I can't see you.
[41:46.630 --> 41:47.850]  The lights are quite intense.
[41:48.310 --> 41:54.850]  So step up to the mic and then wave or something, then I can know sort of what general direction I need to look at.
[41:55.030 --> 41:55.730]  Yeah, go.
[41:56.390 --> 41:56.490]  Hi.
[41:56.690 --> 42:06.850]  I was wondering if you could discuss a little bit some of the arguments used by the Microsoft lobbyists towards the members of the Dutch government and their reactions to those arguments.
[42:06.850 --> 42:07.410]  Mm-hmm.
[42:07.750 --> 42:18.390]  Um, and I'm specifically wondering because it seems at least here in the States that, um, you know, they're a little bit more, uh, accepting of those arguments.
[42:18.570 --> 42:24.590]  And I was wondering how, how much acceptance they gained within your government and what you might do to countering that.
[42:24.690 --> 42:24.710]  Right, right.
[42:24.710 --> 42:41.610]  Well, the reason, or one of the reasons anyway, we got the, the initial motion back in 2002 accepted was that that morning, uh, all over the front page of all the major Dutch newspapers was the Securities Exchange Commission investigation into the profit margins of Microsoft per division.
[42:42.150 --> 42:50.190]  And so it's basically stated that the, the net profit margins on the windows and office operating, uh, office products were about 90%.
[42:50.190 --> 42:53.250]  So that was, that was the thing.
[42:53.450 --> 43:08.450]  Um, I remember very clearly that in 2003 to 2002, 2003, when you were critical of, uh, particularly U S software companies, you would be branded anti-American and in the Netherlands in 2002, that was a very bad thing.
[43:09.210 --> 43:13.150]  Now, six years later, it's not such a bad thing anymore.
[43:13.870 --> 43:23.710]  Um, basically Katrina was sort of the breaking point, um, for Dutch people, seeing that the American government couldn't, you know, do proper dykes to protect his people was quite harrowing.
[43:23.870 --> 43:28.130]  So since then actually, you know, being anti-American is not more anymore a political disclaimer.
[43:28.130 --> 43:30.910]  And now you can just be openly critical.
[43:31.290 --> 43:35.250]  Um, so I think that, that has certainly, it changed the, it changed the perspective.
[43:35.530 --> 43:45.190]  Microsoft has been arguing that they basically have the God-given rights to pursue their business model and that the government is obliged to facilitate that business model.
[43:46.050 --> 43:52.610]  And again, five years ago, they were quite successful in arguing that now, mostly they get laughed out of, out of the room.
[43:53.550 --> 43:58.870]  That, that just doesn't hold much water anymore, but they keep trying and they have a very professional lobby organization.
[43:59.170 --> 44:02.850]  They spend about 500 million euros per year in Europe on lobbying.
[44:03.530 --> 44:05.590]  Our budget is, uh, zero.
[44:06.510 --> 44:11.570]  So the fact that we're still making some gains is, is, uh, I think shows the strength of the idea.
[44:17.830 --> 44:24.830]  Now, when you say that they're spending all this money on lobbying, um, I mean, are they giving, like in the U S direct campaign contributions?
[44:24.990 --> 44:32.530]  I don't know how that works in the other ones, but that seems like the somewhat insurmountable thing when you go to a politician and you say, all right, well, this is a good idea.
[44:32.750 --> 44:33.790]  And he says, yeah, yeah, that's nice.
[44:33.950 --> 44:37.430]  And then gets a $10,000 check from Microsoft or whatever for his campaign.
[44:37.630 --> 44:46.670]  That seems to be somewhat of the... We have never, uh, I'm, I'm very happy to say that Dutch, uh, campaign financing and the Dutch political structure works very differently.
[44:47.430 --> 44:58.310]  Um, but we've, we've never been able to prove a direct flow of money or, or sort of resources from Microsoft to, you know, Dutch political parties.
[44:58.490 --> 45:12.950]  But it has been very interesting to see that, um, uh, the party in the political center of the Netherlands, that the one that's always in power, the Christian Democrats, um, never have an opinion on this matter, whether at the national level or any local government,
[45:13.070 --> 45:13.870]  uh, levels thereof.
[45:14.510 --> 45:23.350]  Um, so it might be that they don't get cash, but maybe they get, you know, a bunch of, uh, planes and buses in election time to do transport or something like that.
[45:23.470 --> 45:25.010]  But we've never been able to prove that.
[45:30.130 --> 45:32.750]  First of all, I'd like to say, this has just been great.
[45:32.870 --> 45:37.110]  It's so inspiring to hear about one human being planning the sea to effect so much change.
[45:37.270 --> 45:38.030]  I think it's really great.
[45:38.150 --> 45:45.170]  Um, but what I'd like to ask is about the NATO, uh, announcement that just came in the other day and what that means.
[45:45.390 --> 45:46.950]  I, um, are there deadlines?
[45:47.490 --> 45:48.850]  Uh, what does that affect?
[45:49.050 --> 45:50.370]  I find that really interesting.
[45:50.670 --> 45:58.250]  As I've understood it, but I only got the mail basically when I was already in the U.S., so I haven't been in touch with my, um, contacts at the Dutch Ministry of Defense.
[45:59.250 --> 46:15.730]  Um, as I understand it, uh, they will move towards a situation where all NATO organizations have to be able to read and write the open document format, um, when other parties requested from them, uh, in, in terms of, you know, moving documents around.
[46:16.030 --> 46:20.430]  And the older, uh, Microsoft binary formats have now been discontinued.
[46:20.710 --> 46:27.230]  So the only binary format for documents that is still allowed is the 2003 version of Microsoft Office.
[46:27.570 --> 46:31.090]  And then open document format will be, become the standard basically.
[46:31.890 --> 46:39.410]  And so you can still, you continue to use any word processor that you like, but it has to be able to communicate in open document format, which includes the Microsoft product.
[46:39.590 --> 46:40.710]  So it's no problem there.
[46:41.150 --> 46:45.450]  Um, but of course realistically this will take several years to implement.
[46:46.030 --> 46:50.550]  Um, and that's fine, but it's good to sort of, you know, set a clear goal and work towards it.
[46:50.690 --> 46:53.250]  So I'm very happy with this announcement because it's a global thing.
[46:56.110 --> 47:03.670]  What would you recommend that a, um, an IT employee for the government do to encourage open standards?
[47:03.710 --> 47:16.010]  Because I know a lot of the stuff that you're doing, that you're doing, if I try that in my job, I would be out of a job very quickly because I'd be up against all the administrators who've already invested in these proprietary software and boom.
[47:16.550 --> 47:16.690]  Yeah.
[47:17.010 --> 47:25.450]  But what, what we've seen in the Netherlands is that there were many IT professionals in government who actually wanted the same things that we wanted, but they kept bumping up against this glass ceiling.
[47:26.170 --> 47:37.430]  Um, and the great thing, as soon as you get this policy moving, then you'll see all the people who will, you know, start to do it for you come out of the woodwork basically because they want this too.
[47:37.570 --> 47:43.290]  You know, there are many IT professionals in government who want the exact same things for, for the exact same reasons, or maybe for other reasons.
[47:43.830 --> 47:56.450]  Um, so I think the best thing you can do as an employee with inside knowledge is to help whatever outside groups there are in, in the same way that we got a lot of help and a lot of critical information from people on the inside.
[47:56.850 --> 48:08.490]  You know, and they would basically, you know, go home and, um, uh, you know, mail us something and, or, or, you know, make a phone call to us and say, okay, I'm going to be in this bar at that point.
[48:08.930 --> 48:12.650]  And I might be, I might be forgetting a USB stick when I leave.
[48:13.510 --> 48:14.270]  That might happen.
[48:14.430 --> 48:20.910]  And then, you know, we would go there and lo and behold, there would be a little USB stick with, you know, documents about a procurement process or something like that.
[48:20.990 --> 48:22.210]  And this is how you get your information.
[48:22.450 --> 48:25.630]  Now, you might be risking your job doing that actually.
[48:25.810 --> 48:27.670]  So it's, it's, it's a personal choice.
[48:27.770 --> 48:39.510]  I'm not going to ask anyone to risk their jobs, but the, the most effective part you can play is to help the groups on the outside with accurate information, with time critical information, so they can lobby more effectively.
[48:39.770 --> 48:46.010]  And then once you get a policy in place, then you can again, be the guy on the inside who actually implements it, but then you have a mandate.
[48:46.810 --> 48:54.930]  So I think that, that would be a role, but you have to, you know, make your own decisions, how, how much risks you want to take with that, because it can be risky and you can lose your job.
[48:55.090 --> 48:56.910]  And some people nearly did in the Netherlands.
[48:57.710 --> 48:59.470]  So, so be careful.
[49:07.630 --> 49:17.270]  Sorry, I missed the beginning of the speech, if you covered this, but recently, Microsoft got their standard ISO certified for kind of open documents.
[49:17.590 --> 49:17.770]  Not yet.
[49:17.770 --> 49:17.830]  Not yet.
[49:18.070 --> 49:18.570]  Or so, yeah.
[49:18.670 --> 49:22.550]  So if you could, can you talk about that and where we're going wrong and how are they accomplishing that?
[49:22.690 --> 49:22.690]  Okay.
[49:22.830 --> 49:25.510]  I'm not an expert on the process, but I did follow it.
[49:25.590 --> 49:28.130]  And I know some people in the Netherlands who are experts on the process.
[49:30.410 --> 49:32.130]  Yes, they got it through the procedure.
[49:32.350 --> 49:34.670]  In the process, they basically destroyed ISO.
[49:36.130 --> 49:46.650]  ISO is now dead in the water because Microsoft has stuffed all the committees with their business partners and with countries like Ghana, who, you know, did vote on OOXML and then never voted again on anything.
[49:46.650 --> 50:05.930]  So now we have other standard proposals from anything from surgical gloves to water filtering systems that are basically not progressing through the process because all these parties that, you know, got brought into ISO to vote on OOXML are not showing up for the vote on other issues.
[50:06.210 --> 50:12.850]  So Microsoft has literally, and this has been told by me by various experts, including ISO people from Geneva.
[50:13.050 --> 50:17.990]  They're basically in the process of getting their standards, quote unquote, pushed through ISO.
[50:18.190 --> 50:19.870]  They basically destroyed the ISO process.
[50:20.250 --> 50:25.230]  And that's going to cost human lives, basically, because now we don't get good standards on water filters.
[50:25.510 --> 50:30.130]  So, you know, what is the UN going to buy to help people in Africa to get good water filtration systems?
[50:30.290 --> 50:31.850]  This is a real world problem.
[50:31.930 --> 50:32.870]  This is going to cost lives.
[50:33.830 --> 50:42.190]  And so several countries, Brazil, China, India, Iran, and there are like six or seven others have filed formal complaints.
[50:42.870 --> 50:51.550]  And various organizations in European countries have filed formal complaints against the way the process was handled because there was fairly outright corruption going on.
[50:51.710 --> 50:52.990]  And it's all been painstakingly.
[50:53.110 --> 50:56.390]  I mean, Grok Law has a very detailed documentation on the whole process.
[50:56.590 --> 51:00.090]  And Pamela Jones is a much more of an expert in these matters than I am.
[51:00.270 --> 51:03.850]  So I go there and sort of read up on the details.
[51:05.330 --> 51:11.450]  When the ISO decision was made, the Dutch government immediately declared they made like within an hour.
[51:11.590 --> 51:20.250]  They had a press release and they says, this does not affect our decision to support ODF as the only future document standard in the Dutch government.
[51:20.530 --> 51:22.590]  So that was like immediate press release.
[51:24.230 --> 51:26.330]  And the same goes for Belgium and Norway.
[51:26.550 --> 51:27.650]  Germany's moving that way.
[51:27.870 --> 51:30.170]  I'm now talking to members of the British Parliament.
[51:30.550 --> 51:32.150]  We've had discussions in Berlin.
[51:32.650 --> 51:34.870]  Things are going on in Austria and Vienna.
[51:35.470 --> 51:43.510]  There's a Spanish province which already has totally migrated to open-source software software for all its functioning, including things like libraries and school and everything.
[51:44.470 --> 51:46.650]  So in Europe, certainly there's something going on.
[51:46.730 --> 51:48.270]  And of course, Brazil is also moving.
[51:48.650 --> 51:56.330]  So yes, Microsoft might have succeeded in something, but it means nothing because people have already chosen other things.
[51:56.530 --> 51:57.250]  Thank you very much.
[51:57.450 --> 51:57.870]  Sure.
[52:00.210 --> 52:03.830]  I think we're pretty much out of time and the next speaker needs this place.
[52:05.930 --> 52:07.630]  So I think that's it for me.
[52:07.830 --> 52:10.250]  Thank you all for your attention and for being here at this ungodly hour.
[52:15.060 --> 52:18.560]  And if there are, you know, other questions, let's go and have a drink somewhere.
[52:19.080 --> 52:19.740]  I'm available.
[52:19.980 --> 52:20.280]  Thank you.
[52:24.180 --> 52:25.160]  Thank you very much.
[52:25.400 --> 52:27.680]  I definitely got a lot out of your time.
[52:27.900 --> 52:30.420]  I'm one of those people who works after IT myself.
[52:30.740 --> 52:31.080]  Oh, I'm sorry.
[52:31.620 --> 52:31.620]  Hi.
[52:32.020 --> 52:32.900]  What are you, our party parties?