A friend of mine has written a couple of good articles about Technological Neutrality, a term that is getting popular among some politics here in Spain (I assume it is also becoming popular worldwide). Check them out (they are in spanish. Click here and here). This concept makes me upset as well as Open Source. To me, they are the same song.
Beeing neutral has nothing to do with justice. There are tons of examples in history that reflect that sometimes beeing neutral is inmoral, specially when you are in front of an unequal battle, like the one we are fighting is.
What the free software community is demmanding from public administrators is justice, not neutrality. How can somebody be neutral between a software solution that do not follows standars, do not allows interoperability with other apps, and another solution that does, allowing other programs to interoperate? How can somebody be neutral when some companies not allow users to choose the tool they want to work with?
Open formats and standars are the only way to ensure technological justice. This has nothing to do with beeing neutral, the way propietary software companies want to sell this concept. This is not a battle between software libre and propietary software. It is a battle that deals with freedom. Nobody should be neutral when freedom of choice is been haunted. I’m Not. That’s why I think Technological neutrality is a shame at this point. I want Technological Justice.
toscalix 