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I looked a little deeper and found on his home page the history of the bill: http://www.congreso.gob.pe/congresista/2001/evillanueva.htm Click the rightmost thumbnail, open the first link on the page that opens and look for 01609. Could someone translate? It looks like a version of it was finally passed in 2005, as Law 28612.

The law is not to compete with MSoft , the law is to have an open format.

That's very interesting, and not at all what TFA says: TFA mentions software constantly, and file formats aren't mentioned even once. Come to that, the text of the bill doesn't mention file formats either, and does mention free software as opposed to proprietary software rather a lot. See for example article 1:

La presente Ley tiene por objeto establecer las medidas que permitan a la administración pública la contratación de licencias de software y servicios informáticos en condiciones de neutralidad, vigencia tecnológica, libre concurrencia y trato justo e igualitario de proveedores.

Translation (adapted from apesol.org's version, which is incomplete):

This law has as its aim to establish the measures which permit the purchase of software licences and IT services by the public administration under conditions of neutrality, technological use(?), free concurrence, and just and equal treatment of suppliers.

Or, less closely related, the start of article 4:

Ninguna entidad de la administración pública adquirirá soportes físicos (hardware) que la obliguen a utilizar sólo determinado tipo de software o que de alguna manera limiten su autonomía informática.

Translation:

No public entity will adquire hardware which forces it to use only a determined type of software or in any way limits its IT autonomy.

So, not that I'd doubt your word, but, er ... there really isn't any mention anywhere of file formats; it does indeed seem to be precisely about free/proprietary software. This situation really looks very different from the recent Massachusetts decision. So, unless someone can provide some more information to clarify the present post, I'd suggest modding the parent down.

/CreationDate (D:20050923171727-05'00')
/ModDate (D:20050923171727-05'00')
/Producer (Acrobat Distiller 5.0 \(Windows\))
/Author (igutierrez)
/Creator (PScript5.dll Version 5.2)
/Title (Microsoft Word - Proy. 1609 Adquisici\363n de Software.doc)

The text of the bill is not what is in opensource.org. The real bill approved (at http://www.congreso.gob.pe/relatoria/documentos/PR OY1609Software.pdf) does not mandate any use of free software at all, just makes sure the government is "neutral" when procuring software. Microsoft should be happy with it.

Other interesting thing - this law defines "free software" as the ones covered by the GPL license. BSD-licensed software are considered proprietary software under this law. Stallman should be happy with it :)

Actually this is not a "law to compete against MS". The law that was approved (this one not the one that was posted) says that if somebody wants to spend our money in overpriced buggy software, they must document WHY THEY DO IT.
I've seen government agencies buying oracle for low volume non-critical tasks that can be easily performed by postgresql. So why not use it?

This is the old version of the law. The bill that was approved is: http://www.congreso.gob.pe/relatoria/documentos/PR OY1609Software.pdf
This is not strictly speaking a free software law. It is a law that norms the use, adquisition and adjustment of software in public administration.

This is the directory of the peruvian government. and this one the directory of peruvian congressmen.(both written in ASP). Maybe a samaritanian soul has the mood to gather all those emails to say a word to them on this subject. I wouldn't call this spam. Would you?

Yes, It's not just Dr. Villanueva but also Dr. Daniel Estrada a proponent of a free software law in Peru. As you can see here there's another law proposal. They are both projects No. 2485 and 2344

Mr. Nunez's email is evillanueva@congreso.gob.pe. Why not send him a short, polite note of praise for his clear and well reasoned letter?

Dr. Nunez e-mail address is:
evillanueva@congreso.gob.pe

His peruvian congress page. (In Spanish) Or Translated by google.

Is villanueva his family name? I have no idea how peruvian names work.

Anyway somebody, preferably here in new york (I could ask my boss, but I'm in the bio department, so it would go nowhere) should invite the man to come up here and give a talk. Does anyone at the school of public policy read slashdot? Also, somebody should give him an honorary doctorates ('though he already has one), and a medal.