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Mexico City Adopting Linux; Software Rent Savings Go to Fight Poverty
"Anonymous coward south of the border" sent in this: "Check this article in the mexican online newspaper Reforma (a liitle bit of spanish language knowledge required). It's an interview with the Technical coordinator of the Distrito Federal goverment (Mexico's capital of the country) where they say why choose Linux over MSWindows and make the change of all their systems in a period of 2 years to Linux. All the money saved from the MSWindows licenses will be reallocated to programs for fighting poverty. Sounds good that part of our taxes won't be in Microsoft hands anymore and the Mexican Goverment giving Linux a chance." Maybe someone will post a decent translation - the web-based services make a hash of it. But the interviewee notes that they will save tens of millions of pesos by switching away from rented software.
Sorry about replying to my own comment, but I suppose it's interessting, that the hole eMexico stuff is not _at all_ about saving money, it's a much broader concept. I've been suspiciuois from the start, Mr. Cerisola does know about costs, some reasons my be found here
:-)
In this broader concept it may make sense, and possibly get fewer money in US ISP's
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42 cows on a 42km road on their way to 42.org
Well, first and foremost, Mexico isn't a North American country...
Really, how did you move the spin axis of the Earth without anyone noticing? Though if you made the equator the Northern most point of the US/Mexican border then large bits of the US would no longer be North America either.
Open source is not a revolutionary concept for many in the third world, but a necessity. Being able to open the hood and fix things one self is very critical for the success of any product in under developed economies.
It also can be essential for functions of government where you explicitally do not want to bring outsides, especially forigners, in. Where there is a possibility for their enguaging in espionage.
I've figured out some things that were confusing me when I did the original translation. Replace the word "replacement" with "replacement of old license plates." Replace "making legal" with "bidding for." In addition, make the following correction and addition:
Original
The design of the program for the free [cost] replacement - for which the contributors have brought themselves up-to-date in their payment [?] - began in September 2000 and through several meetings headed by the Technical Coordination, is currently in the process of making legal [?] the computer goods.
Corrected
The design of the program for the free [cost] replacement of old license plates - for all citizens who have brought themselves up-to-date in their payment of registration fees - began in September 2000 and through several meetings headed by the Technical Coordination, is currently in the process of bidding for the computer goods.
Add this on at the end: (I couldn't figure out what they were talking about, so I left this last paragraph out of my first translation).
It was announced that with the payment of [overdue] registration fees, the replacement of old license plates was going to be free; do you have anything to say about that, and is this part of the design of the new system?
Of course. In fact, if you notice that the payment of fees this year is very different from the payment of other years. . . It is for this reason that we are connecting the two databases, even the payment mechanism for both cases. In other words, the fees now on-time, the fees later, all this so that it can be put in the banks [databanks?].
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
They are using Linux on some offices right now, the first 'big aplication' will be a database for a system where people renew the licence plates of their cars, and catch up with the payments (or something).
They plan to have linux on all the government computers in 1-2 years.
Some of the areas that will use linux are: tax recollection, transit related databases, and some social programs.
They don't plan to pach linux, or develop anything (really, that's what the guy says), but they want to turn all the systems to 'open systems' (not just linux, all free software around it)
They don't just use windows, they use other propietary OSs right now.
They will save millons of pesos, that will go to the pour, the kids, and the cute puppies.
The rest is a very long a boring interview with stupid cuestions, like 'will it have a search engine?'.
Nice news.
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Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
Linux is GPL. If Mexico City's government wants to stick with a certain distro, they can buy one set of a Deluxe/Professional set ($70) and a CD-Burner ($200) with a number of blank CD-Rs. That's all. Paying for a distro is not paying for a license!
-- Look to the Rose that blows about us--"Lo, Laughing," she says, "into the World I blow..."
At least the gov't over there in Mexico understands what the fuck is going on. We still spend money for licenses and 100 million investigating president's dick sizes.
Good for Mexico, their people will be better off, get some better education. Which will hopefully mean more higher paid people to tax.. It all balances out. Plus we'll get some more people in the movement etc etc yadda yadda.
I'm glad I could be of service to the /. community.
Keeping
Largest filespace!
Pinky: "What are we going to do tomorrow night Brain?"
Brain: "I would tell you Pinky but this 120 char limi
The Mexicans should just steal the software. Who is going to stop them?
Local Government Avoids Windows Purchase
Keep in mind they will have to pay for those CDs still for the distributions, and it is not likely that their whole government is switching to a new platform without some extensive support contract.
Also, they will probably outsource their server installations and workstation builds on a contract to meet deadlines. That is a nice chunk of change! (will make some consulting company happy)
Such a large move to a great new platform doesn't come without quirks.. don't forget they will now have to (re)train their support technicians and administrators too. Ah well .. viva Mexico!
-Pat
And now they are forcing me to use a heap of hackware.
And what's all this BS about spending for the poor? Oh please, I've heard that one before. If this was about cutting taxes nobody would have suggested it.
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>80 column hard wrapped e-mail is not a sign of intelligent
>80 column hard wrapped e-mail is not a sign of intelligent
>life
I second wholeheartedly what you've said here. The Spanish of the article in question is really, really awful. It is a pity that such a widely circulated Mexican newspaper such as this has to suffer this assassination of the Spanish language.
-- Look to the Rose that blows about us--"Lo, Laughing," she says, "into the World I blow..."
The yacht and briefcase could be a bribe, but the cutting deal of investing in the country and free license for a period of time is a common business tactics of them.
My University has signed a deal to lock themselves with their free products for 5 years, and someone failed to notice that the contract includes restricting the signed organization from using 'competing products'. As a result, no new SUN workstations/server til it expires. Is it fun to use sparc 2 for parallel processing research or what.
I actually consulted lawyers if we could sue this idiot. Guess what - we can't sue people for their stupidity. *Grumble*
It's not the cost of the ms software licenses, but the cost of antivirus software required on every MS system! Tell me you aren't required to update that regularly!
No, not everyone can be Pancho Villa- but if Mexico City decided they wanted to hire me I would be there very quickly (to be him would be fun). I come from poor people in America, being an eighth Native American among other things really makes it hard to sit down in the office with the old American regime; but I still do. I have put these things behind in the hope a world government will emerge. I do love my fellow man/women(!) Yes- I am calling you a racist because you judge the character of America's indigenous people as ingenuine and coniving. True- 4/10 Drug Kingpins named by the U.S. Government are Mexican but this track record may be indicative of a much earlier and much more violent colonization which has, for the most part, wiped out my family. Shitty healthcare, segregated fountains, segregated schools, and bigoted minds have all helped destroy my family's lives until one generation before me. When we get a leg up, an actual opportunity to do something so that we may prosper via your coveted (and for the most part misused) computers you squirm in discontent. A precursor for your scramble for ozone and PH 5000 sunscreen. Australia is wore out, England has those smokestacks and soot colored insects, and now America is the final refuge for the prosperous. Go ahead and jump in your SUV and think all day about the corruption of peoples that have been here thousands of years before you. Open source makes things easier- period! Although open source has a political agenda of it's own maybe you should be complaining to JAVA, Robert Joy, Berkley, Perl, or any other organization which is bringing computer service to people all over the world. Now, to let you in on a little wisdom, some conventional knowledge from someone who may know what being poor is like- yes, the poor are the friends of the bureaucrats. The common man, the average joe /w the 9-5 is a friend of the bureaucrat because this is what politics are about my friend. Social networking, seeming nice and approachable are all parts of it too. At times this may be too much personal responsibility for an 33lit3 Hax0r but maybe that means that it is time to wake up, grow up, and actually talk with people that are from somewhere else. But I am sure you will always be stuck listening on port 139 to your same news reel and your circumlocutious behavior will cause your brain to rupture like a bad backup and 12 support calls piped in through your ROLM headset which you call your rich prosperous life. As the carpal sets in maybe you'll notice that some of your belongings may in fact and quite possibly may have a "made in mexico" inscribed somewhere upon their varied surfaces. How many people died for your comb buddy? Can you spend all day thinking about it? or can you quit being so judgemental?
-j3553
It is not real Mexican food.
It is only a lame Californicatian attempt at mass-produced Tex-Mex food. For *real* Tex-Mex, you need to come on down to south Austin, to one of those little independently owned restaurants where you're the only one in the whole place who speaks English and just order off the menu by item number. (Everybody should be able to at least count to ten in Spanish).
Does this mean the open source community will be able to deduct there services as charitable contributions?
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
Steve Magruder
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
Many times the upgrade path is paved in application requirements.. i.e.: you must have build X with patch Y to run this application.
Over 3 to 4 years I'll wager you'll have to upgrade that Linux install at least twice -- that is if you run any software at all on it.
Of course we are working in a windows vacuum here -- i.e.: they will not need to run any windows applications. If they need to run any at all then you must assume you will need to install, support and update a windows VM of some sort -- and your right back in the same issue with windows updates you are today made much worse by the fact that MS can break your solution at the drop of a hat.
From http://quote.yahoo.com
10,000,000 Mexican Pesos=$1,042,970.34USD
Not bad, not excellent either.
And that doesn't include the loss of the ability to run the thousands of Windows only applications or the additional cost of configuring the Linux machines to support vertical market Windows applications -- it can be an ugly world in Windows to begin with for many of them.
:0 ".
Assuming the relevant Windows applicatios cannot be run using something like "wine -display
Even if the numbers for hiring Linux professionals, a rare and relatively expensive breed still, are equal to that for hiring Windows trained professionals (of which decent ones are somewhat rare themselves) the savings in licensing are not horribly significant
You are missing that the money will stay within the economy. Rather than leaving the country...
IIRC, Miguel played a part in convincing the Mexico (or maybe just Mexico City) school system to standardize on Linux w/ GNOME system-wide. I remember seeing that on Slashdot a year or two ago, prior to the release of GNOME 1.0, but I don't know what the outcome was. Does anyone know what happened?
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If using Linux does reduce the poverty level in Mexico, someone should nominate Linus for a Nobel Peace Prize!
The point here is that if they need to ever run any Windows programs the savings may evaporate.. .and perhaps the cost will be 100's of millions of pesos to make it work right.
Here's my 2 pesos. Slashdot es grande,...(I'm Mexican). It is my understanding that what that interview really means, is the attitude towards ``Wy will stop the dogmatic endoctrination of mighty windows preference''. Forget those $200 dollar PC's Brasil's government is about to launch (from which I would like to attatch my voodoo3 3000). We in M'exico describe progress as, some sort of the following effect: We call progress between two cities connected by a road, as the benefits aquired. Or the consecuence of two cities growing,... i.e. the road. Anyhow, that is progress in Mexico. PC's first, despite OS, then people in both extremes with GNOME/KDE making things easily? (previous grep,sed,awk tutorials) , and arrive of ``my first computer'' will do (see: Miguel de Icaza project http://primates.ximian.com/~miguel/emexico.html ) In which conclussions he states: ``México nunca ha tenido la oportunidad de participar en la tecnología de punta y siempre nos hemos mantenido rezagados. Con el uso del software libre, México tiene una oportunidad de ponerse a la cabeza en el desarrollo tecnológico y de llevar adelante proyectos que satisfagan las necesidades del proyecto e-México y al mismo tiempo crear una infraestructura que nos independice tecnológicamente.'' Translation: ``Mexico has ever had the chance to participate from edge tecnology, and we have allways being keept away from it. With the use of free/open software, Mexico has the oportunity to become a protagonist in the leading edge of technological development, wich will satisfy the development of the e-Mexico project neccesities, and at the same time create an infrastructure wich will make us independent (non-dependent).'' Finally, I think despite of the GNOME/KDE, Konqueror/Nautilius,Enlightenment/Sawfish, Slackware/RedHat, dilema,...it would be worthed a proccess to follow. Some Red Carpet, Bonoboo, Evolution (.NET?) technology will for shure help in the process. It is not that MS took the OS to the masses (thanks Bill) during the 80's , being UNIX as ``snob'' as allways and being selected as the OS of excellence during the 70's..... Joel Rodr'iguez http://ww.cicese.mx/~joel/index.html joel@cicese.mx
The only problem is that after saving all those $$$, we have to be sure that the dollars come back to benefit the economy not just somebody's pocket.
See my journal, I write things there
wow, 1 million US = 1.6 million Canadian.
Cool...
(for those of you who don't get it, 1 mile = 1.6 km)
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
miguel wrote:
Actually, if you read the entire article (but i think you got confused), the benefits of free software (being able to modify, and redistribute said modifications) is part of the features that the interview mentions.
The web article was more focused on the economic benefits of using Linux (i.e. no license cost) than on Open Source issues. There were only one or two sentences on free software (libre y gratis).
I do not know if that is on the web version, but it was definetly in the printed version (which also included a mini-FAQ on the whole Linux thing).
There wasn't a mini-FAQ in the on-line version I read. Perhaps it was a URL? I couldn't find it, though.
En dónde encontraste copias impresas del periódico "Reforma" de hoy?
Cheers!
Eugeniohttp://eugeneciurana.com | http://ciurana.eu
so .. do you REALLY think its going to stop them just becuase its forbidden ???
Here it's also forbidden, but it happens all the time, and everyone knows it.
As a desktop OS? Probably true, you won't save enough money for it to be worth your while and you limit application support. Of course, if your desired application usage is single purpose and not general purpose desktop usage, it may not really matter. On the server side, this comparison is somewhat silly. I mean, I would imagine that a government is dealing with a lot of client/server style systems here and big databases, etc. The cost of the Windows OS is relatively small compared to application cost within the enterprise, and I would assume that is the case for a governmental entity as well. Linux is a rational choice as a *nix OS that runs on low cost hardware and is well supported by the Open Source/Free Software community at large and has a large number of free and low cost apps available for it. Yah, the professionals may cost money to set it up, but a well set up and managed set of Linux boxes can have a lower TCO than Windows.
Are Microsoft's licensing terms different in Mexico? Given that they've already paid for Microsoft software, how are they planning to *save* money by throwing all that out and converting to Linux?
Okay, maybe they're planning on expanding computer use a lot in the near future or something. Anybody know what the story is?
Actually, I think the point is that many Microsoft products now require that you use that product in conjunction with a properly licensed copy of a Microsoft Windows operating system. I don't know if they could defend this in court or not, but it is a part of all their EULA's. Since Wine isn't a licensed copy of a Microsoft Windows operating system, it would be a violation of that EULA.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
I hope that the government of the D.F. holds the line, but I am a little cynical.
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index .html
-- Mexico's GDP per capita: purchasing power parity - $8,500 (1999 est.)
And the United States' GDP - per capita: purchasing power parity - $33,900 (1999 est.)
Now granted I'm not an economist by trade, but I think this means that your dollar, on average, goes four times as far in Mexico; i.e., if an hour's wage here in the States buys you a BigMac and a pack of smokes, you should be able to take that hour's wage across the border and buy four BigMacs and four packs of smokes. Note that this also generally implies that some dude in Mexico doing the same job you do is probably making about a quarter what you're making (if you converted his paycheck to American dollars.)
Of course it's all more complicated than that, otherwise you'd be able to get a degree in Econometrics (which I don't have) from a box of Captain Crunch.
Also, it's quite possible that Microsoft charges the same dollar amount wherever you are in the world; that is, just because prevailing wage and cost of living are both four times less in Mexico, that doesn't mean Windows is four times less. That's the thing about international monopolies.
Hell, I got no dukes. Hope this has been useful to someone.
Having trouble finding online dictionaries?
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Patrick Doyle
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Start out with something reasonable...
I mean, how many economies have been destroyed by free software so far?
Nice troll but you're getting annoying. You're as bad as a karma whore.
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Ikaruga scoreboard (supports netranking)
In case you didn't notice, Mexico has a new "regime" now. Give them a chance.
Warning: mexican political trivia follows...
There are 3 main political parties in Mexico right now. It used to be there was only one, the PRI. Now there's a president from the center-right party, the PAN, while Mexico City's Governor belongs to the leftist party, PRD.
Not that it has anything to do with the article, as far as I know, but still it's a nice bit of trivia to know.
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
Learning to fly, Pink Floyd.
I almost moderated you.. very creative. Unfortunately my loathing of anything that has to do with Michael Jackson prevented my finger from clicking the mouse button.
Knowledge is like ignorance.. too much can be just as bad as not enough.
Think delicious savory marinated Pork, charcoal roasted on a vertical spit in the manner of Gyros, with layers of pineapple and onion interleaved, served in a grilled corn tortilla with onion, cilantro , and salsa. ungodly good. :)
Guess what I had for dinner yesterday?
At last, someone who knows some real good mexican food, instead of just the crap that Taco Bell serves.
But here's a warning: in some parts of Mexico, the "Tacos al pastor" are also called "Tacos de trompo", a trompo being a small wooden toy with the same shape as the meat on the spit.
However, in some other parts, there are also "Tacos de trompa", which is tacos made out of pork lips and noses. I'm not kidding. And it's dangerously easy to confuse the pronuntiation of these.
Oh, the humanity...
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
Learning to fly, Pink Floyd.
MS may be nasty to deal with but the Government is much worse when they think you've stepped in their territory.
The fact of the licensing war is that this can be a trap that could cost 100's of millions of pesos to rectify.
It's self-defeating; you can't help the economic status of people by destroying the economy they live in!
You are correct, but there's a problem with your reasoning in application to this specific problem, how many Windows developers are in Mexico? 5, maybe? So, using a free OS is not taking away from the economy of Mexico in any signifigant manner. What it does do is free up some money. Now, you seem to think that this money would just be given away. Yes, that would be dumb. However, that's not what governments do for the long term. (Yes, short term programs like Welfare exist, and they actually affective). For the long term, they do job training, buisness incentives, stuff like that. That takes money. What does this move do again? Oh, that's right, frees up money. So, there you are. Have a nice day.
Politicans and generals throw money at corporations for hare-brained, pie-in-the-sky "weapons systems" and then after retirement they get jobs with said corporations wining and dining the other politicians and generals who succeed them, who then throw more taxpayer dollars at those ill-advised projects.
It is a vicious cycle that is more effective at siphoning money from the public treasury than a hundred individuals with Swiss bank accounts...
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You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
Sounds about right.
El Presidente probably WON'T be looking at impeachment for getting a hummer.
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Could you please offer your opinion on two of my grammatical obsessions: 1) How is it that I went through years of school never having learned that "an" is used instead of "a" when put before a word that begins with "H" whose first syllable is not accented? Like this: "It was an historic battle." ...instead of: "It was a historic battle."
I've NEVER used the first form - always used the second - and I've never heard anyone speak that way until fairly recently.
2) Why have news-casters suddenly started pronouncing the "t" in words like "negotiations" like an "s" instead of an "sh"?
This also seems to be a fairly recent affectation, coming into being maybe within the last few years or so.
Is it the fault of those damn Mexicans and their damn Linux?
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
Oanda <-- Here's a pretty nice Currency Converter site I found while looking a few days ago.. It's suppposedly always updated. I think it even has data tracing back to 1990, (but that could have been another site)
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
Nice troll, Bill. When you set up your
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You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
As part of the maturation of Linux it's got to be out there.
(Who Meta-Meta-Moderates the Meta-Moderators?)
Who keeps Atlantis off the maps?
Who keeps the Martians under wraps?
We do! We do!
Who holds back the electric car?
Who Meta-Meta-Moderates the Meta-Moderators?
We do! We do!
-- The Stone Cutters
Perhaps you should look at a map... Start in Washington, go south of city limits, and you're in Virginia. Go several hundred miles and you should be able to reach North Carolina, depending on how many hundred.
Excuse me? If you were smart enough to check a map, the whole continent is called 'America', and it is divided in three regions:
North America, which includes Canada, USA, AND Mexico.
Central America, which includes Guatemala, El Salvador, Panama, Costa Rica, Ecuador, among others.
South America, which includes Argentina, Brazil, etc.
Most US people tend to think of themselves as northamericans, or even only americans, which is sometimes annoying. Mexicans are americans. Canadians are americans. Canadians are northamericans, Mexicans are northamericans.
I just hope someday you will get this right someday.
Signatures are supposed to be funny?
We must keep the drawbacks of this plan in consideration. Without a MS operating system, they won't have the MS Office application suite, notably Word and Outlook. Oh no! But wait, 99% of the viruses known have spread through... *drum roll, badabadabadabadabada* none other than security holes in Outlook and other MS software! Think, they'll save millions more pesos by not needing extensive anti-virus monitoring to keep Outlook viruses from shutting down their network!
If any of this appears incoherent, assume that the writer was drunk.
It will be reinvested in Linux development. If the entire government is on Linux, there will be a lot of opportunities for Linux application developers.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
Well, that amounts to about 36 cents in savings...
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GeekWares - Buy and Download Today!
So it all makes sense
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C'mon, flame me!
No sig for the moment.
Damn. I don't want to defend my country from an attack by some troll, in another language, in a board which is even located in another country. I dont't want to. Don't wanna.
Obviously, I will.
Backgroudn info: the Zapatista movement was supposedly started by the way the Federal Government had turned a blind eye to the local comunities in the state of Chiapas. So a few insurgents put up a rag-tag army made up basically of local natives, and started attacking soldiers and policemen in several towns and cities in the state.
But since then, they've turned from a social movement into a mainly political one. They wont end their war (which they declared) with the Mexican Government until several points they're making are met. However, some of these points are incredibly unfair: they claim to be defending native's human rights, but they want the Constitution to preserver they're "usos y costumbres", their way of life, with which in several cases they're even worse off than a regular citizen. Oh, and they also want to receive federal grants and money to do so.
Extreme violence? Extreme prejudice? I'll grant you that there have been several cases where the police have crossed the line and beat up several people who were protesting peacefully. But to go from that to "extreme prejudice" seems completely far-fetched to me.
I dunno. Maybe i'm a bit fascist at heart, but I'd rather see the police and/or military charge into the National University than to see it left to the hands of so-called students on strike. Almost one full year lost, millions of dollars lost in wages and more importantly, in scientific research, and only because somewhere around 10% of the students wanted to gain political power inside the University.
So don't come here calling Mexico "an enemy of humanity". Mexico has been one of the few countries which has constantly declared Peace to be one of the basic rights of every citizen on Earth. We're one of the countries still dealing with Cuba on a friendly basis, and not due to a "die gringo yankee die" mentality which some other countries have.
Ok, It's late. I need to sleep. But my point is, we're not perfect. We're not one of the riches countries, or one of the more advanced ones. But I will not let anyone speak such lies about my country. Mod me down if you wish, but I just wont take htis kids of diffamation quietly.
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
Learning to fly, Pink Floyd.
No Hablo XML!
-- Nerds on toast in the new millenium
IIRC, Connectiva is actually a Brasilian distro, though there are both Portugese and Spanish versions. My bet is on Red Escolar Linux, a distribution aimed at the Mexican schools and government. It's much easier for governments to pick a distribution that's based in their country so that the economic benefits stay at home. It also has the potential advantage that since it's being used in the schools there will be people who are already familiar with it as users and administrators.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Can we recalculate costs again?
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C'mon, flame me!
No sig for the moment.
Open source is not a revolutionary concept for many in the third world, but a necessity. Being able to open the hood and fix things one self is very critical for the success of any product in under developed economies. If the user does not know how to fix it him/herself there will be plenty of street corner shops to offer the service at reasonable cost. The closed source of software distribution will not reach the majority of population in the legal way.
As far as governments adopting the concept is concerned, it gives an institutional backing to the concept which is a big selling point. For example in India any thing approved by the government is looked high and the fact is used in promotion of many products.
The concept is the need of the hour and thanks to all who are working on this.
yAthum UrE yAvarum kELir All the places are our place, everybody is our kin. (A Tamil Poet - 2000 years ago)
This brings to mind a spot I saw on Slashdot ages ago about Mexico choosing linux for use in 140,000 schools.
I wish Rob would add "year" to the posting date of stories... I think the above post was from 1998.
Man, really these people get a different version of Windows... I get the BSOD at work at least daily, to the dismay of the Admins brought by the company.
Disclaimer: I work at the Mexico branch of a US Fortune 100 company.
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C'mon, flame me!
No sig for the moment.
Guess taking 4 years of Spanish in high school is going to pay off afterall, if a whole Spanish-speaking country ends up becoming Linux users.
Viva Linux!
Too bad I don't know enough Spanish IT vocab to translate the article fully though.
Reality is indistinguishable from any sufficiently advanced fantasy.
Absolutely right, you have a major point here.
Forced upgrades: can you say library upgrades? I'm willing to bet you will have forced upgrades in the Linux world based on new applications within the next 12 months let alone 5 years (i.e.: 5 years from release of W95 to roughly now). This cost is included in a decent ROI as either maintenance or upgrade costs.
Can you spell apt get upgrade?
Can you put this in a cron script that runs nightly?
Downtime losses -- (snitch again!) 2000 and NT are much more appropriate and Linux has stability that is in at least the same ballpark.
Correct again!
The argument is one of what are you giving up to go Linux over NT/2000?
Again, the Mexico City goverment systems are being planned for very specialized terminals connecting to databases. This is not to replace computer systems already in place, this is to replace systems where people do paperwork by hand.
New hardware is an issue. Think you can run the latest Star Office and get productivity on that P133?
Thats correct again, but again, this is not planned to use office software, at least at the beginning, this is for terminals.
The Mexican goverment uses a lot of typewriters, though...
(snitch yet once more!)
Of course Linux looses immediately due to a lack of user interest -- sad but true.
Why should the users be interested?
Does a clerical worker get to decide which OS he/she uses? Sure the hell not!
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C'mon, flame me!
No sig for the moment.
...and it'll be a shame if MS has learned that lesson from the anti-trust battle....
Gringo pendejo (yes, that was a well deserved flame)
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C'mon, flame me!
No sig for the moment.
If you want to sing the praises of Win2K, why don't you hang out in alt.I.want.to.brown.nose.Bill.Gates instead?
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You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
--
You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
There's no such word as "can't".
Yeah, ain't such.
__
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
Sidenote here, but your contention that there is only one language spoken in America is patently false. Check out this site at the census bureau for some information. Choose "Education and Language Spoken At Home". There are over 30 million in the US who have a native language other than English...that the Census found. I would guess that this number is very low, these are the folks who would tend to get skipped.
Doesn't the 'Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, or FCPA' only apply if the act or bribe is committed in the US?
:)
But then again the US do assumes the hole planet is part of the US
Uhm. If the expression is equivalent to saying "millions of dollars", then it is certainly not limited to 1-9 million. It means that he is referring to a large sum, without knowing the specifics at this point (which is also confirmed elsewhere in the article).
Okay, okay, so it is. :)
- - - - -
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
For many poor countries this may be as attractive, or even more attractive, than the initial hope of reducing the immediate costs.
As such, yes open source upset the current economical system, by shifting the balance from the typically US and Europe based large software companies, to service providers and developers locally (which benefits the country even if those people happen to be employed by multinationals like IBM etc.)
well, you know us scientists and engineers, as soon as we hear a unit we look for a conversion factor or two... ;-)
(you are absolutely right though about the exchange rate not meaning anything)
--
News for geeks in Austin: www.geekaustin.org
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
Ha! Like that would stop them. They're also forbidden to use a monopoly to restrict trade or to gain marketshare in another market, but look how many apologists came out saying that the anti-trust laws are stupid, Microsoft is a powerhouse yada yada.
perhaps on a more sub rosa level, with a few well-placed gifts, free vacations
What does sub rosa mean?
__
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
the mexican govrenment, lies. they lie alot. the mexican government makes the american government look like a bunch of club scouts and choir boys. i do not like the mexican government. everybody look into the zapatisa movement as to why the mexican government is evil. they have no interest in fighting poverty, their bankroll gets paid because of it. as of 1994 (the year NAFTA went into effect) the people of mexico have been getting poorer, which means that multi-national corperations can come in and pay them nothing, which means that the mexican people will work for less, which means that the next company in will pay less. the mexican government refuses to intervien in this cycle. the mexican government is selling public lands for personal profeit. how would you feel if the mayor of los angelos sold the statue of liberty to some multi-national corperation so that they could strip mine the (small) island and melt down the staute? the mayor of los angelos is thousands of miles away, and even still has no rights to sell the land. the point is that the government has consistantly gone back on what they said they would do, they have sold lands which belongs to the people to fatten their coffers, and have subdued non-violent reform groups with extreme violence, and extreme prejudice. do not support the mexican government, and hold your hands still, it may be a victory for the linux community, but it comes at the hands of an enemy to humanity.
(Disclaimer: I'm not native, but this should get the gist of it. I ran into a few phrases where I am nearly certain that the article had typos, but I don't have enough ability with the language to figure out what they were really trying to say. I left most of the run-on sentances as they were, but some I corrected.)
Local Government will avoid buying Windows
The technical coordinator of the capital's administration, Jose Barberan, informed [us?] that with the new computer system it will be possible to implement a database program that will be used in the replacement that will begin in the middle of the year.
by Alejandra Bordon
Mexico City, Mexico - (March 12, 2001) The information revolution, the seed of which was planted by a young programmer from Finland, Linus Torvalds, has arrived at the Distrito Federal's [Mexico's equivalent of Washington D.C., the area surrounding Mexico City] government.
The method: use Linux un all areas of the capitol's administration, an open, free [cost], and free [license] operating system created by Torvalds in 1991 and continually spreading over the entire world.
The objective: save 10's of millions of pesos [millions of dollars] in license fees for the use of commercial programs - like Windows - and use the money for poor-assistance programs that the Government leader, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has initiated.
In charge of the project is Jose Barberan, Technical Coordinator of the capital administration, who informed [us] in an interview that Linux will be used un the program for the database replacement that will begin in the middle of the year.
The design of the program for the free [cost] replacement - for which the contributors have brought themselves up-to-date in their payment [?] - began in September 2000 and through several meetings headed by the Technical Coordination, is currently in the process of making legal [?] the computer goods.
Among the first steps, they have already taken the step of moving from commercial systems to open systems in some of the driver's-licence offices, where Linux is already working.
The goal, as Barberan explained in the interview, is to bring all of the systems in the City Government to Linux in one or two years, in a gradual process that avoids risks in the administration's operation.
Among the areas that in the near future will see their systems changed are the ones in charge of tax collection, databases that have to do with the transition and the new programs, as it is the one with the elderly [referring to the poverty programs].
Is it true that you plan to use and improve the Linux environment for use in the government?
Use and improve Linux? No, we aren't going to improve it ourselves, there are people all over the world improving it, but yes we want to bring the Distrito Federal [DF] Government's systems, as far as is possible and as long as the process doesn't interfere with basic functions, to open [source] systems, beginning with Linux as the OS. Not only Linux, but all of the free [cost] software that revolves around Linux systems.
The DF government, like all governments and like all companies, spends a significant amount of money on software, and we want to make this more efficient, because we have the instruction [? my guess is "we are an example to"] all areas of the government, of the most efficient way to set up the government, to create savings that will create something easy to understand that is more support for, say, support of the elderly, of the disabled, the single mothers, etc.
Will this be a substitute for Windows, which is that which is currently used in all of the offices?
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
Yeah, except that (1) the guy in the article never said anything about 100 million pesos, he actually was talking about tens of millions of pesos, but that (2) the tens of millions of pesos comment was only his opinion, and (3) he admitted that he didn't have any exact numbers to back that opinion up.
Given that they're not even past the design stage of this project, and there's no way that he could figure the cost when it hasn't even been designed, the phrase "Whoop-dee-doo" comes to mind.
Cheers,
Exactly. Hand most of the savings to the rich. That's really going to cut poverty.
How many times do I have to tell people (I'm actually used to this kind of arrogance from Statesians, who figure that meaningful comparisons can't be made unless everything is in terms of US$) that for in-country comparisons, exchange rate is meaningless?!
:)
What you need to look at are in-Mexico prices of basic goods and services. Then you will know how much of a savings this conversion actually is, and how much their anti-poverty programmes will benefit. I mean, if it costs 10 000 pesos just to buy a loaf of bread, then a few hundred million pesos isn't really a whole lot. If, on the other hand, it costs 10 pesos to buy a loaf of bread, then a few hundred million pesos is a lot.
For a bunch of alleged math goobs, you programmer guys can be pretty out of it sometimes.
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
There's no divide at all. "Central America" isn't the name of a continent; it's the southernmost region of North America.
Yeah, let's take the money, teach the poor how to use computers, teach them C, and have them work on the kernel!
/* Now, we make el kernel el speako to la Western Digital 200HDC avec la C code! */
:)
Imagine seeing comments like:
You have a great idea!
------------
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Tonight on Fox: Deadliest Executions Part XVII
The only potential negative here is the projected savings of 10's of millions of pesos. If the government looses face because of that they may actually put open source back years in official adoption of it as a standard.
It is not real Mexican food.
Just to reiterate, this is not the entire Mexican government that's making the switch (at least, not yet). This is only the government of Mexico City itself, not the whole nation.
Granted, this is still a cause for Much Rejoicing, but there's still a long way to go.
----------
Thanks, until I read your responce, I thought that companies and politicians were always acting in the public interest. You've convinced me of the error of my ways.
Do not get into a 'my cynicism is bigger than yours' battle with me, you will lose.
chris
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What do you mean? Didnt you read the article? They are giving the money to the poor and seeing all us linux developers are the unwashed unpaid masses, that means us.
How we know is more important than what we know.
What good do you think US antitrust legislation is in Mexico?
Troll, troll, troll!
Nothing on tv tonight, so I may as well reply.
Of course you have never paid for software. You are a 1337 d00d. Oh. Sorry. 0560d. My mistake. Regardless, you burned a few iso's.
Second, in reference to this comment, I installed RedHat 6.2 about a week after it came out. Haven't reinstalled it yet. Not on about six computers. While that doesn't necessarily compare to the needs of the Mexico City government, certainly if reinstallation were necessary (as you presume) I would have done so on at least one machine.
It's unlikely that the needs of the government are that high. If everything is going to paper, why does one need anything more than StarOffice? That's right, they don't. It has import filters that will take most of the crufty MS Word file format should they get that sort of document (and since M$ claims to be moving to XML for that sort of thing, does that matter anymore?)
In all likelihood (sp?), the government's needs are minimal. File sharing, setup, and maintenance is made trivial by either NFS or SMB (though more the former than the latter). Minimal installs are necessary for workstations. No services need to be run, and the machines could conceivably be no more than X-terminals. Sorry, but even though you think Terminal Services are grand, they can't hold a candle to the power of X-Terminals. Especially combined with NFS.
As far as licensing agreements go, Mexico City is part of a soverign nation (no, really, go look it up) that may or may not uphold license agreements written by or favorable towards the firm from Washington state. While not likely, it's not at all beyond their power to nationalize distribution of all M$ software.
Do you have a link to support your views about potential open source cost savings? While also on that post, do you have any examples of the software that the gov't of Mexico City may want to run that is provided only in a MS only shop?
About the limited savings you mention again... Do you honestly think that Mexico City doesn't have more and better economists, planners, and accountants than your 1ee7 d00d consulting company? Yes, both MS and Linux solutions require dedicated, capable admins. Duh. But in your rosy view of things (again, unsupported by any references) have you taken into account the cost of translation of the software? The speed of upgrades/fixes? The ability to DIY if your support contractor can't do these things or do them in a timely fashion? Have you considered the PR value of having a product in use created by a citizen of you own country (Miguel deIcaza) rather than some north of the border gringo?
Finally, did it ever occur to you that while saving tens (note the plural form. They are saving at least $20 million dollars, not $1-$9 million as you suggest) of millions of dollars may be insignificant to many corporations, countries, etc. it is not an insignificant sum for a city in a developing country?
No. I thought not. Now go away troll.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Are you suggesting that Mexico has somehow moved to Africa? Or that the long awaited polar reversal has finally occurred? I thought I was feeling a bit topsy-turvy today.
Mexico
Tell that to the judge as he ships your butt off to federal prison.
The law is the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, or FCPA. Where I work, we get an annual briefing on this law and business ethics in general.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
It's really not our fault, we Americans just got stuck with a really crappy name for our country. So we just had to name ourselves after the best word in the name of our country.
_____________
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
American companies are forbidden to bribe foreign governemtns, etc. This is actually a matter of dispute with some European countries whose companies are not thusly restricted.
And Microsoft is such good, law-abiding corporate citizen, right?
-- Nick "Hallo this is Beel Gates, und I pronounce weendows as
How many times do I have to tell people (I'm actually used to this kind of arrogance from Statesians, who figure that meaningful comparisons can't be made unless everything is in terms of US$) that for in-country comparisons, exchange rate is meaningless?!
Very often since some people will never get it...
Here's a copy of the post I made on Slashdor last night. I think you'll especially like the line, "It runs all the apps users want to run."
I'll be back in Redmond Friday.
blessings,
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
I'm not saying you won't see it but I am saying that if you have decent IT policies and procedures you will not see it often.
... /. is really alt.I.want.brown.nose.RS ... or was that alt.I.fear.because.I.know.Im.inadequate
Just last week, I was trying to set up an arms deal with India, but I lost out to a bunch of undercover reporters because I wouldn't pay the bribe.
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The savings will add up -- and will be less than $20 per user per month assuming 0 negative impact for making the choice. Any negative impact at all from the choice can easily cost millions of dollars (10's of millions of pesos).
I'm not saying don't do it. Do it -- just make sure that it is clearly thought out and that the city is protecting the public trust when they do.
...How many installations of Windows are actually licensed. If the widespread corruption of the cops is any indication, I would guess that for every licensed Windows, there are 6 un-licensed.
Is that a real poncho? I mean, is that a Mexican poncho or is that a Sears poncho?
Say what you will about MS Marketing but they are not dumb or short sighted.
However, when international trade comes into play exchange rates matter very much. Not in a direct way but rather in how the forreign corporations make their decisions.
A lower exchange rate would mean that this would not be as bad aof a loss for Microsoft.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
...even though the officials say that it is the main reason for the decision.
The big win for Mexico will be in accessible systems. Education doesn't happen in schools, education happens where people have uninhibited access to things. You can spend as much money as you like on schools and only make the educational situation worse (the USA has thoroughly proven this).
Poverty programs also have a very patchy history.
Installing systems that people can actually do stuff with will only impact a few percent of the users at first, but as more discover the power now at their fingertips - and more importantly, the documentation inherent in the source code, and the ability to make incremental changes (``experiments'') - the effect will snowball.
Whether it snowballs enough for Mexico to survive when Microsoft's massive financial fraud kills Microsoft and possibly also the US economy, is a different question. But certainly they will be better off.
Either way, it is entirely possible that ``destroying the economy they live in'' is the best possible large-scale move, since it will be replaced by something else.
The best training by far is actually doing stuff, not meta-doing stuff in a classroom.
The best business incentive is wanting to do it, and knowing that you can, and knowing that there is some point in starting and running a business. Linux will help to provide tools helpful for many small businesses, and so increase the incentive to start one.
BTW, I think the ``5 MS developers'' quip is a pretty staggering bit of imperialist ignorance. Are there any Mexicans reading this who would care to comment?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
From the article -
Under the FCPA, U.S. jurisdiction over corrupt payments to foreign officials depends upon whether the violator is an "issuer,"
a "domestic concern," or a foreign national or business.
An "issuer" is a corporation that has issued securities that have been registered in the United States or who is required to file
periodic reports with the SEC. A "domestic concern" is any individual who is a citizen, national, or resident of the United
States, or any corporation, partnership, association, joint-stock company, business trust, unincorporated organization, or sole
proprietorship which has its principal place of business in the United States, or which is organized under the laws of a State of
the United States, or a territory, possession, or commonwealth of the United States.
Issuers and domestic concerns may be held liable under the FCPA under either territorial or nationality jurisdiction principles.
For acts taken within the territory of the United States, issuers and domestic concerns are liable if they take an act in
furtherance of a corrupt payment to a foreign official using the U.S. mails or other means or instrumentalities of interstate
commerce. Such means or instrumentalities include telephone calls, facsimile transmissions, wire transfers, and interstate or
international travel. In addition, issuers and domestic concerns may be held liable for any act in furtherance of a corrupt
payment taken outside the United States. Thus, a U.S. company or national may be held liable for a corrupt payment
authorized by employees or agents operating entirely outside the United States, using money from foreign bank accounts, and
without any involvement by personnel located within the United States.
Prior to 1998, foreign companies, with the exception of those who qualified as "issuers," and foreign nationals were not
covered by the FCPA. The 1998 amendments expanded the FCPA to assert territorial jurisdiction over foreign companies and
nationals. A foreign company or person is now subject to the FCPA if it causes, directly or through agents, an act in
furtherance of the corrupt payment to take place within the territory of the United States. There is, however, no requirement
that such act make use of the U.S. mails or other means or instrumentalities of interstate commerce.
Finally, U.S. parent corporations may be held liable for the acts of foreign subsidiaries where they authorized, directed, or
controlled the activity in question, as can U.S. citizens or residents, themselves "domestic concerns," who were employed by
or acting on behalf of such foreign-incorporated subsidiaries.
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Just to round it out, the interview translation:
...other than to train the MS management, fast learners actually, how to achieve their goals in a more smooth manner.
Over 1/4 of the population of Mexico lives in Mexico City. With 24 million people officially, and an estimated 30 million unofficially, Mexico City is the largest city in the world. Its population is greater than that of many countries, or most US states.
And this makes Mexico different from other North American countries how?
Well, first and foremost, Mexico isn't a North American country...
- - - - -
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
American companies are forbidden to bribe foreign governemtns, etc. This is actually a matter of dispute with some European countries whose companies are not thusly restricted.
Chris
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Because this parity is reality in politics the world over.
As a guy who took a semester of Mexican History in college and loved it. I can tell you that Mexico's version of Graft and Embezzlement makes American Graft and Embezzlement look like a kid taking a buck or two out of his mom's purse.
It's that bad.
Linux O Muerte!
Well, the people running the projects are the friends I worked with a few years ago (Patrick Vielle and Jose Barberan). I am glad the government has followed up on this.
I was in Mexico City this weekend trying to get the eMexico project to adopt free software as well. You can read the paper I presented here: http://primates.ximian.com/~miguel/emexico.html
Miguel.
Nope:b .h tm
http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/fraud/fcpa/dojdoc
"Foreign Corrupt Practices Act"
From the article:
The FCPA makes it unlawful to bribe foreign government officials to obtain or retain business.
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Plus, recovery is easier, since it's mostly a matter of restoring user files from backup, not reinstalling/reconfiguring the OS itself.
Usage of linux will save Government money
The information revolution, whose seed was planted by the young Finlandic programmer Linus Torvalds, has reached the district federal governer.
The reason: they wish to use Linux in all the areas of the capital's administration. Linux is an open source system, free and Free, created by Torvalds in 1991, and has spread around the world.
The end: to save tens of millions of pesos that would be spent paying for commercial software -like Windows - and to use the saved funds to pay for programs to combat poverty.
The project was an idea of the capital administration technical co-ordinator, José Barberán, who told interviewers that linux was used in the program for the database of replacements that would begin in the middle of the week.
The program's design for the free replacement - in exchange for which the contributors bring their payments up to date - began in September 2000. After several meetings headed by the Technical Coordination, the program is now in a phase of bidding for the computer hardware.
After taking the first steps, Barberán went to change the commercial systems to the open-source one in some offices. The goal, according to the following interview, is to change all the City's Governement systems City to Linux in one or two years, in a gradual process that avoids risks in the operation of the administration.
Some of the areas that will see changes in the future are those in charge of the collection of taxes, and databases that have to do with transport, and the new anti-poverty programs.
It is true that they will try to improve Linux to use it in the government?
To improve Linux, no, we are not going to try to improve it, for many around the world are improving it continously. But we want to take to the Federal District's systems as far as possible and ensure that basic functions are compatible with free software. It's not just the Linux OS - it's all the free software that makes Linux what it is.
The government of DF, like all governments and like all companies, spends a large amount of very money on software, and we want to be more efficient with that because we have the instruction that all the areas of the government, of a complete government system, to produce savings that will benefit everyone.
Will you be able to replace the omnipresent Windows, the OS that is used in all the offices?
If we're careful, yes. Windows is not the only system that is used - the Government of the Federal District uses other operating systems in many important machines. To be replaced are all operating systems for which a fees are paid. Then we will advancing towards the use of open-software in all areas. Taking precautions, ofcourse, to ensure that the changes don't interrupt the operating parts of the government.
Isn't it risky to change the systems?
It is a problem of qualifications, and to make a transitionary program to upgrade - in an orderly manner - the things we do today to use the new systems
In what level of the process is the project?
It is currently in the design phase, because we also need to redesign the Government's computer structure.
Does this open source licence mean that the creators are not paid for use?
Yes. And it also means that we have access to the all the programs' source code. So we can adapt it to the needs of our systems. This is something that we can't do with commercial systems, which don't grant access to the source code. This is a very important point: the access to the source codes that allows us, with skilled programmers, to adapt the systems to our needs.
How much will the government save?
I don't have an exact figure, but it is a lot of money. Many tens of millions of pesos are spent, unnecessarily in my opinion, on software.
Can I use Babelfish to translate this, or has M$ bought Altavista yet?
I too work in health care and it seems that the main reason my IT department likes outside vendors (and Microsoft) is because they can shift the responsibility (and blame) to someone else. SQL Server is broken? Blame Microsoft. An important application is broken? Blame the vendor.
That attitude really irks me, because things don't get fixed until several rounds of finger pointing between the the IT department, the app vendor and sometime the OS vendor. Sometimes the problem never gets fixed and the users have to continue to suffer. At least with open source you can attempt to D.I.Y...
--
You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
Zapatistas is to win once Tux is on their side!
"gratuito y libre" could be the new slogan for GNOME...
sulli
RTFJ.
It's very nice to see this (as I mentioned in another post).
The savings are going to be significant; not only do they not have to spend the annual licensing fees for the useless OS's, they can also need not upgrade their hardware as often.
HOWEVER: With the old Mexican regime's propensity towards graft and embezzlement, my concern is that 'the poor' will be redefined to be 'friends of the bureaucrats'.
two cents worth
d.valued
Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
"As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)
I used to be someone else. Now I'm someone better.
Real life is underrated.
Who will prevail? At this point, it's difficult to tell. Some detractors would argue that free software presents an undue intrusion into existing economic model. Open source code is a revolutionary alterance in the existing capacity of software distribution; it alters the capacity for user freedom in ways that our current economic structure and techonological understanding may not be prepared to accomodate. Perhaps foibles in this untested process may condemn Linux to an ultimate footnote amongst economic history.
Supporters, on the other hand, say that Linux is an important step forward for both computer manufacturers and the government. With previous informational "protection" schemes, users could not take advantage of the most important technological benefits gained from modern-day information research. Open source, they say, opens the proverbial floodgates by bringing knowledge and technology out of the laboratories and into the homes of the every-day user.
There is some probably some merit to both viewpoints. Certainly,the government as a whole will encounter some friction as it shifts to accomodate the power capacity and access provided by Linux. However, the end result may be worth the infrastructural shifts; Windows and MacOS may not be as structurally capable as their newer cousin.
Will Linux sink or swim in the government? The question is still up in the air; with many unique forces and viewpoints at work, we'll likely see many interesting challenges and confrontations for the pioneers in the field. Whatever the final result is, it's sure to give the key players on all sides of the issue a trial by fire.
Yu Suzuki
Yu Suzuki
Deamcast. It's thinking.
It might be more than a coincidence that Miguel de Icaza (from Gnome fame) was a highly placed computer consultant for the political party from which the City Major belongs to.
...without reservation.
And that doesn't include the loss of the ability to run the thousands of Windows only applications or the additional cost of configuring the Linux machines to support vertical market Windows applications -- it can be an ugly world in Windows to begin with for many of them.
Most models assume tech support and maintenance (software, hardware, etc.). Even if the numbers for hiring Linux professionals, a rare and relatively expensive breed still, are equal to that for hiring Windows trained professionals (of which decent ones are somewhat rare themselves) the savings in licensing are not horribly significant.
Where do the alledged savings come from then? Better management of the system (if you have a good sys-ad it will be cheaper, but you will need to pay the sys-ad well)? Longer life for the hardware (will only be proved in a workstation environment 3 to 4 years down the road)?
Funny. 'Cuz this guy works for a corporation, and he's being told not to even try to do it, at the risk of getting sent to prison.
If people could get away with it, why would a corporation be so silly as to spend money training its employees not to?
Well its good to see that foreign governments are seeing the light. I mean that Linux would probably work better for the mexicans than windows. I mean, essentially Linux does the same thing as windows. Plus Linux is less expensive so that they can use the money for social and economic reform. I bet though, that a armada of windows VP's are on there way to Mexico to save it government from "disallusion"
Diplomacy is the art of letting people have your way
This whole overly verbose rant all boils down to an implicit assertion that there are lots of funky and rather specialized things that the Mexican government is doing.
This has not been shown to be the case. No attempt has been made to characterize their actual computing needs at all. This is quite typical of the "all the world is a nail" approach of the common Lemming.
OTOH, even if more specialized apps (than are currently available under Linux) are a part of the equation: those can quite possibly be replicated with the resources saved by solving your problems once and for all and then owning the end result.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Large organizations usually have some kind of site license that includes updates and a subscription fee.
It's called politics. And the boat bit (without the suitcases) is called lobbying.
Kudos to the Mexican govt. for doing this. Now we just have to get other govts. to do it. Less money on licences means more for programs to help the needy. I'm all for that.
---
Wanna name the law exactly here? I can bribe whoever the hell I want to bribe in a foriegn country baby. It has got didly squat to do with my government unless I'm endangering national security or something. Shit, M$ could probably just buy Mexico outright couldn't they?
How we know is more important than what we know.
Actually, if you read the entire article (but i think you got confused), the benefits of free software (being able to modify, and redistribute said modifications) is part of the features that the interview mentions.
I do not know if that is on the web version, but it was definetly in the printed version (which also included a mini-FAQ on the whole Linux thing).
miguel.
(Loose Translation Follows) Local Government Will Avoid Buying Windows The Technical Coordinatos of the city administration, José barberán, informed that with the new computer system (sic) they can do the database program that will be used for the replacement of car's plates that will begin at the middle of the year.
/End of article/
/.rs who suggested the change to the city government of I-don't-remember-which-one US city who got an audit from Microsoft a few months ago and didn't have all the licenses ?
By Alejandra Bordon
Mexico City, Mexico (March 12, 2001)
The informatic revolution which seed was planted by a young finnish programmer, Linus Torvalds, has come to the Distrito Federal's Government.
The media: to use Linux in all the areas of the city administration, an open operative system, free and with freedom, created by torvalds in 1991 and more disseminated every day all around the world.
The goal: To save tens of millions of pesos (1 dlls = 9.65 pesos) in the payment of services in the use of commercial programs - like Window - and instead use those resources to support the programs against poverty that have been put in operation by the Chief of Government (kind of a Super-Mayor), Andres Manuel López Obrador.
José Barberán, Technical Coordinator for the city administration is in charge of the project, who informed in an interview that Linux will be used in the database program of the replacement of the car's plates which will begin in the middle of the year.
The design of the program for the free replacement of plates will be free - if the cars owners don't have any due payments in the tenencia (a yearly car possession's tax) began since september of 2000 after several meetings headed by the technical Coordination, is in the stage of licitation of the computer goods.
FYI
The government of Mexico City is a from a left-wing party, and it's in the second administration from it. In regards to the IT departmen, there was a scandal three or four years ago when the first government of this then-opposition party assumed, when they found some "shadow opperations" between some people of the last government and IBM salespeople, but not in the same level as the Argentinean case. Don't remember more especifics by the moment, but I think IBM had to pay something back, but I'm not sure.
In the other hand, it's the same city government who doesn't want to be under the federal summer-time/energy savings schedule (I don't remember the US exact term for this.) which is more a populist stand than for technical reasons.
Now my comments:
Somebody said: "Now, what is free software going to do except put professional programmers out of business? Then they'll be some of the poor needing a hand-out. It's self-defeating; you can't help the economic status of people by destroying the economy they live in!"
What kind of moron says that ? They're replacing WINDOWS, the last time I looked, WINDOWS is not a mexican-developed OS, so who is affected by this ?
In fact, it's more probable they'll need a little more programmers to do this.
No, giving away money it's not a way to fight poverty, but stopping giving away money to some companies when you can avoid it by using free alternatives and spend that money otherwise is not a stupid thing. Sheesh!
Somebody said "damn commies" ? What difference is it between this actually happening replacement of Windows to the countless proposals of
Get real!
Why not do something productive with the savings? If they really wanted to do something good in Mexico, they should clean up the corruption. Or lower taxes. (:
I tried, I really tried to translate this but the reporter's writing is horrible. Even if you're not a Spanish speaker you can tell that she writes these loooong sentences without punctuation. She also has lots incomplete sentences. The article is very hard to read, even in Spanish. Don't blame babelfish for the weird sentences.
Rather than translating this whole aberration, I will try to summarize the important points, below.
You can read the partial translation at: http://gala.cime.net:8080/~ciurana/linux_in_df.htm l. I added some comments to the partial translation where they would help clarify context (i.e. what's the current peso-dollar exchange rate).
Take care and cheers!
Ehttp://eugeneciurana.com | http://ciurana.eu
I suppose you meant this as a joke, but is it really fair to dump on Americans for being monolingual? One cannot truly learn a language in isolation from native speakers, and there are few to be found here. And this is a damn big country. Go a couple hundred miles south from London, and you're in France. Go a couple hundred miles south from Washington, and you're in Virginia.
I have studied Spanish; I could leer el jodido artículo with about as much difficulty as thick legalese; but I speak Spanish just well enough to get my nose busted if I ever tried to use it in Mexico.
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Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delenda est Windoze
Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delendae sunt RIAA, MPAA et Windoze
Sorry... Americans who constantly bitch about corruption, or 'freedom', or 'oppression' in this country by comparing it to the rest of the world really, really piss me off. They clearly have no idea how good we have it when compared to everyone else. The Mexican idea of 'corruption and graft' involves doing things like telling the Secretary of the Treasury to transfer money directly from the Treasury to swiss accounts. The Argentine idea of 'corruption and graft' is having their Secretary of the Interior sell their equivalent of Yellowstone- and pocketing the money herself! Yes, we have our problems. Yes, campaign finance sucks. But there is a huge leap from "the decisions of elected officials are influenced by large corporations" to "government officials who don't steal millions of dollars at a time are extremely unusual."
IAAL,BIANLY
Its only marginally worse than the Canadian Dollar, which many of us Canucks lovingly refer to as the Northern Peso. That's not a slight against Mexico. Its awesome down there, one of my favorite places to vacation. Ever. Unfortunately, our federal gov'ment in Canada has bitched the country so badly over the past many decades that our economy has fallen to complete and utter shite over recently, at least compared to the "haves" down south in the US.
Comparing all three currencies gives us some funky numbers:
100,000,000 Mexican New Pesos
16,300,010 Canadian Dollars
10,449,320.79 USD
We're not so bad I suppose... Could be worse.
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
just to make 'tens of of millions of pesos' more easily understood in US terms, 1 peso ~= 10 cents. 10 pesos ~= 1 US Dollar. However it is converted, this is still a big gain in money and of quality for the Mexican government
Well, the peso isn't that bad. ;-) Here's a link to a universal currency converter I found via google (I don't know how up-to-the-second the rates are): www.xe.net/ucc/ . According to it 100,000,000 pesos is 10,449,320.79 USD, which is a non-trivial amount.
One question that springs to mind is what distro they're planning on using. Connectiva seems likely becuase of it's internationalization for Spanish-speaking countries, but hey, maybe the head techie dude likes Slack... :-)
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Corel and Rebel have also donated a bunch of software and hardware to various schools systems in Mexico and South America.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
In case you didn't notice, Mexico has a new "regime" now. Give them a chance.
I was struck in your transaltion by a phrase -- "free and Free" -- for "gratuito y libre".
It's neat how Spanish captures this distinction so much more succinctly than English.
Think how much energy and confusion could be saved if English captured this distinction as well as Spanish.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
We have been restrictive but have opened up over time to make sure that essential functions are available (i.e.: task manager can be quite handy if they have an out-of-control app so they can kill it).
This is a managed implementation. That means that the SA's and support people working in concert with the business leaders had to lay out a road-map of what was allowed and what wasn't. Then they had to implement it.
No user installed games, no user installed screen savers, no user installed software. Yep, it's Draconian. It is a business choice implemented through technology.
You read me wrong. I'm guessing the number of Windows developers, not the number of people developing programs that run on Windows.
100,000,000.00 Mexico Pesos =
10,449,320.79 United States Dollars
Not exactly small change, considering the cost of living there. You could probably keep 10,000 people fed and clothed pretty nicely @ $1000 each per year.
Commercial Kylix releases: Si. Free download version: No.
Borland began shipping Kylix on March 8, 2001. For more details, see http://www.borland.com/kylix
The release last week comes in two versions: Desktop Developer and Enterprise Developer, both of which include Apache, databases and database components. Enterprise includes native connectors for IBM DB2 and Oracle.
My understanding of Borland's present planning is that the free download, slated for availability later this year will consist of the IDE only, minus web and database-related functions.
Borland can be reached on 1-800-632-2864 for specific clarification.
give me a
...those models are based on LIST cost of MS Software.. .which I've never paid to begin with and I doubt anyone else has either.
Forced upgrades: can you say library upgrades? I'm willing to bet you will have forced upgrades in the Linux world based on new applications within the next 12 months let alone 5 years (i.e.: 5 years from release of W95 to roughly now). This cost is included in a decent ROI as either maintenance or upgrade costs.
20$ per user as quoted was $20 per user per month -- i.e.: it is a repeating expense. It is significant but when distilled to that number most bean counters add it automatically to their "head" price and get on with life.
Downtime losses -- if you want to be in business then buy the appropriate hardware and software. Windows 98/95/ME are not appropriate where downtime is a concern. Not an argument -- just a statement of fact. 2000 and NT are much more appropriate and Linux has stability that is in at least the same ballpark. The argument is one of what are you giving up to go Linux over NT/2000?
New hardware is an issue. Think you can run the latest Star Office and get productivity on that P133? On a P200 with 64mb of RAM NT seems to hold neck and neck for office apps with Linux. Add another 64mb of RAM and NT may even beat it. Frankly, whenever you go graphical on either platform you spend hardware bucks. If we are talking non-graphical Linux wins. Do you really mean that you are going to have those users not using X? If so the argument shifts dramatically and a P133 is adequate for Linux. Of course Linux looses immediately due to a lack of user interest -- sad but true.
Are their any systems designers/planners out there? Anyone who has done any coding on a large scale product? Anyone else who's seen what happens when 90% of the problem is addressed leaving a critical 10% to hang in the wind?
I am not condemning Linux on the desktop -- just pointing out that the product has not been proven to meet general desktop requirements. I would suggest that instead of a knee-jerk reaction of "well you don't know..." you might examine the shortcomings of the product base and honestly attempt to shore it up.
Perhaps I'm asking for maturity in the community.
I think perhaps you read me wrong. I'm guessing that there aren't many Windows developers....that is, people work on Windows...that is, writing code that will become a part of the Windows OS, in Mexico. I'm fairly sure that a great majority of them work in Redmond.
It's a pity the money they save (or a portion of it) is not reinvested in linux development. They would get the benefit of a development community, localised software, and all the other benefits that go with having a vibrant development community.
While I support the concept of looking after the poor, I would prefere to see the poor become rich by having a job.
How big is Mexico City? Try the 3rd largest city in the WORLD, with 18 million people, and you begin to see where the savings could add up.
When Linux can be said to "run all the apps users want to run" then WE will have something to be even more proud of.
I guess I'm guilty of the unforgivable sin, running a MS product in a business environment and having it work. Didn't say it was perfect, just said it has been cost-effective.
My dream is that some day the same can be said for Linux as a generic desk top replacement. A useful measurement toward that goal would be an objective study showing the savings brought by using Linux in the work place. I'd even take a gander at a non-objective study. I'm looking for support metrics. I'm looking for gap analysis. I'm looking for total cost of ownership.
So far all I'm getting here has been a knee-jerk statement that I must be a MS weenie. I have used MS software. I have used Linux. I have used Mac OS 6.5/7/8/9. I cut my teeth on an APF Imagination machine. I used a Commodore 64 and a Commodore 128. I am using W2K to write this on.
I am probably more in the average of the technical population than anyone who is a software bigot -- the attitude of only one OS should be out there is troubling. The attitude that their is not room for any one specific OS is disturbing.
A knee-jerk reaction to any product because it is made by MS is on par with a knee-jerk reaction to any student who dresses in a dark trench coat. I expect more of professionals.
Propping up an industry with corporate welfare doesn't do anyone any good in the end. If a certain device or process has gotten to the point where it is worthless or obsolete, it's demise should not be prolonged.
Besides, programmers should not waste their time helping Robber Barons keep on selling the same old tired applications (or operating systems) that (should have) matured 5-10 years ago.
Can the luddite crap.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
was fun to flex the ol' Spanish gray matter again...
Anyone going to Mexico City --
You must eat as many tacos al pastor as possible -- they are absolutely exquisite and
the same dish in the U.S. doesn't hold a candle.
Think delicious savory marinated Pork, charcoal roasted on a vertical spit in the manner of Gyros, with layers of pineapple and onion interleaved, served in a grilled corn tortilla with onion, cilantro , and salsa. ungodly good.
Anyway, enough culinary diversions -- here's the article(With credit to ciurana's translation in one spot) Local Government will Quit buying Windows by Alejandra Bordon
(translated by grogzoid)
available at http://www.laulea.com/mex_city_linux.html
Mexico City, Mexico - (March 12, 2001)
The informatics revolution whose seed was planted by a young Finnish programmer, Linux Torvalds, has arrived at the Federal District's government. (ed -- the Federal District is the government for the Mexico City metropolitan area -- sort of like Washington DC except for it is the commercial and demographic center of the country, as well as political)
The means: use Linux in all areas of the capitol's administration. Linux is an open operating system , free (as in beer and liberty) , created by Torvalds in 1991 which continues to spread throughout the world
The goal: save millions of pesos from expenditures towards commercial software -- like Windows -- and use these resources to sustain programs that fight poverty which have been put in place by the Chief of the Government, Andres Manual Lopez Obrador
The project is being run by the Technical Co-ordinator of the Captiol's administration , Jose Barberan, who communicated to us in an interview that Linux will be used in the programs for the database used for licence plate replacements.
The design of the program for free plate replacement -- for those taxpayers began in September 2000 and after various meetings headed by the Technical Coordinator, is in the phase of defining the "means of computation" being used (ed -- likely to be the platform)
In the initial phases, commercial systems are already being replaced by open ones in some of the Driving License Offices, where Linux is already being used
The goal, as explained by Barberan, is to migrate all sistems in the District's government to Linux in one or two years, in a gradual process which will avoid risks to the administration's operations
Amongst the programs which will be migrated to the new platforms are:-- Interview Follows --
Yes. The official way to influence foreign officials is to have the CIA threaten, blackmail, or bribe them for you. They have decades of experience in this field and don't appreciate the competition.
(Score:-1, Underranted)
There are a host of products US companies are using from M$ (which can be switched to Corel's stuff or [yech] StarOffice) that part seems relatively straight forward. However, any organization of a non-trivial size beggins to need custom (usually a big bunch of database front/back ends) software for operations, and right now this is usually done with crap, oops I mean Visual Basic. Has anyone out there actually gotten Kylix yet and is this type of custom app reasonably easy with it?
Until our children are no longer molded into castrated sheep democracy remains a fake and a danger. -A. S. Neill
Hehe. In Europe, companies can even deduct bribe expenses from taxes.
About the limited savings I mentioned -- my point is exactly as stated above -- as you stated it. I have seen no reliable studies by any groups supporting any conjecture that a Linux install is cheaper in any way shape or form. What I have seen is industry standard support costs for Windows environments. It is easy to identify within those industry standard documents the support costs of the licensing of the software. That cost is close to what I represented. I'd suggest you look up Gartner to start with.
If you know of any study by someone with authority please do tell. After all your unsupported rebuttal was pretty much a troll.
Of the thousands of applications available today in vertical markets and of the thousands of applications being developed what percentage are being developed or available on the platform used by 90% of the OS users out there today? Windows is king on the desktop still. A fact that is still a fact no matter how you may try to dispute it (industry surveys of late).
I have worked for state and local agencies and governments in the US only. I can tell you from experience that the majority of programs they have to use and need implemented are windows based. Is this a cart or horse problem? Good question -- the issue/point here is that the bean counters need to make sure they know the answer and most times DO NOT.
The only stupid question in a system integration is the unasked one and most times bean counters need competent IT support to make those decisions. If the bean counters have not heard the reason that the objections I raised are invalid in their configuration then they need to ask more questions.
Mexico City is part of a sovereign nation. If you haven't noticed many nations, Mexico included, have some sort of intellectual property arrangement with the world at large. Intellectual property is protected in some manner.
X and Terminal Server/Citrix server differing but similar purposes. One does not replace the other. Perhaps if you were a little more agnostic you might consider that Windows has a spot in IT today. Terminal Server/Citrix enhances that spot. There is some overlap between X and Terminal Server/Citrix. Overlap that might help to drive competition and enhance the product.
The down side to this is that MS understands licensing. They understand Corporate and Government (national and international) IT. They understand MARKETING. The fact is that a Windows machine can interact in a mixed mode environment at little incremantal cost. A Linux machine will incurr licensing fees to use Windows based applications. It is the way the license is written. Advange: Windows.
I installed NT 4 on 200 workstations 2.5 years ago. We have updated service packs but not re-installed the OS on any machine. I don't get the point of the Redhat comment. Since that time we have installed NT and W2K on hundreds more machines. It is stable. It works today. It runs all the apps the users want to run.
Star Office is a great effort and it is coming of age. Other than having little faith in Sun.... (they are a company.. .they are owned by stockholders and are beholden to those stockholders... if the management is not making a profit they are out on their rears and the new management can orphan or attempt to modify the licensing of the product.) my only issue is that it is a second class citizen in the Office space. It is not the leader, the innovator or the standard. MS Office is.
Frankly, in this troll you have posted, I see no data and no solid argument. Got any facts? You may find I'm very receptive to them.
It takes me an inordinate amount of time to find the sailboat in those static-filled pictures. :-)
Thanks for the clue-by-four(s).
I still wish stories (at least archived ones) were posted like this: "Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday November 30, 1998 @09:20AM"
If only our government wised up and did that, things would be so much better. Then again the government is completely run by politicians so I guess we need to exchange them first before we even have a hope of getting Linux in the White House.
Buzz Off
People always want things for free.
You're referring to the Mexico-wide Red Escolar project. The Status page says one state is testing it.
It's not a matter of being brave. It is a matter of having covered any gaps in the offering. Of the 200 users installed above 0 could exist in a Linux environment. They all use 2 custom Windows applications that are specific to the health care industry. The vendors do not and will not support them in a different environment and that includes emulation.
As stated before Linux needs a killer app. An app to drive the purchase of workstations. The app's in question here justified the purchase of the infrastructure and had a defined pay-back time frame. These are things that make bean-counters happy -- vendor support and defined pay-back cycles.
Seems like the vertical market is prime for Linux... opportunity is knocking. Of the dozen or two major vertical market shop's I deal with none (0, zero, nada) are planning any desktop implementation of their software in a Linux environment. They may consider limited server support in a second tier environment someday in the future... but not yet.
This is important because the users I deal with are driven by the "killer" apps in their field -- they will buy the hardware and software package that does the job for them. The justification is in the pay-back.
Turning that around and putting it in the corporate IT position it is difficult for any IT department to justify a desktop rollout of Linux if neither the industry standard desktop software or the "killer" apps that the business needs to survive are native or supported on it. Justification has to be in dollars and cents. Justification is not just license costs but includes support costs. The killer apps are not driving Linux implementation yet. The killer apps are preventing Linux implementation as they are still requiring Windows. It's a double edged sword.
What!!!!
Main screen turn on!
It's you!!