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Free Software Law in Argentina
Free Software Law for Argentina
There's presently a law being discussed at the Congress in Argentina, that would make mandatory the use of and migration to Free Software when possible.
That law was originally proposed by a Congressmen, but he contacted people from the Free Software Community in Argentina (non-profit organizations, LUGs, etc.), and we have already suggested many changes that are making into the law. This has already a big push from a lot of people (including RMS), but we are interested about opinions and suggested changes for the law, coming from the Slashdot community
Sorry for not having an URL published, there's one but we have very little bandwidth
This is a translation of the law being discussed. It's already in discussion at the congress, and moving on
Note: all uses of the "free" word are for spanish "libre", i.e, free as in free speech, not free beer.
Policy for Free Software use for the Federal State
Article 1: The National Public Administration, Decentralized Organizations and corporations where the State is a majoritary shareholder will only use for their IT systems and equipments free programs (software).
Article 2: "free program (software)", will be understood as software with a license of use that guarantees the user, without an extra fee, the following rights:
- Non-restricted use of the program for any purpose
- Exhaustive inspection of the internal program operation.
- Use of the internal working, and of arbitrary segments of the program, to adaptate them to user needs
- Production and distribution of copies of the program
- Modification of the program, and free distribution of the modifications and the resulting new program, under these same conditions.
Article 3: The source program of any free program must be the primary resource used by the programmer for modifying and inspecting it. Therefore, no program categorized as free can contain any restriction difficulting its access, or intermediate stages as output from a non-free pre-processor or compiler.
Article 4: Licenses for free programs used by the National Public Administration, Decentralized Organizations, and corporations where the State is a majoritary shareholder, will have, in all cases, to allow explicitly modification and derived works, as well as non-restricted distribution of these works with the same license as the original program.
Article 5: The Executive Power will set in a term of 180 days, the conditions, timelines, and ways to implement the transition from present systems to free programs as defined in Articles 1 to 4; and will move future licitations and contracting of computer programs (software) in that direction.
Artice 6: From the date established by the Executive Power on, Public National Organizations mentioned in article 1 of this law, will not be allowed to use programs that store data in non-public format, or with licenses which:
- Imply any form of discrimination to people or groups.
- Don't fulfill of the preceding Article 2.
- Are specific or exclusive for only one product.
Article 7: Once finished the transition term, with a duration regulated by the National Executive Power as expressed in Article 5, there will be exclusively contracting and use of free computer programs.
Article 8: The Public State Universities, the Provincial and the City Governments, and the Autonomous Government of the city of Buenos Aires are invited to adhere this initiative
Article 9: Communicate this to the National Executive Power"
This law project was mentioned already in Barrapunto, the spanish Slashdot. The comments was interesting (however, they are all in Spanish).
This law is very well written - with good intent behind it.
This law basically states that if the government or government owned institutions are to use software, it must be examinable by the people of that country. What a wonderful idea - one that most Americans are familiar with.
We are allowed to observe almost all areas of government, comment upon it, and change it as needed. I'm glad that at least some governments realize that this should apply to software as well.
I wonder if there is a similar push here in the U.S., or should we start a grass roots campaign?
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
I would argue that in order to have a free government, then one must be able to examine everything the government does. This includes software. Note that the law does not state the programs must be free beer, but only free speech.
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
What an extremely naive view of things. The handling of data by the government is much much more complex than how a microphone works, and besides, if you purchase a microphone, it is legal to take the damn thing apart and figure out how it works. You analogy, though horrid, actually works against your case.
If a corporation/company/spy agency places a "bug"[1] in a microphone, the microphone is working beyond its described task - it's duplicating the information presented to the device in a subtle manner and transmitting it elsewhere. However, the owner of the microphone has the right to examine his microphone and remove any "bugs", if found. The same goes for software.
Making matters worse, the government's primary job is to manage information about identity and ownership. The government knows that you and you alone have claim to item X because it knows that you exist, you are whom you claim you are, and that you've legally obtained item X. This information exists to protect your rights when someone else lays a fraudulent claim on either your identity or your property.
Now, realizing that this is perhaps the ultimate function of government, do you want your identity and property information being sent to any corporation whose software is used to manage this data?
The only sensible answer is "No"
[1] Used here as an electronic transmission device
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
This is a great step but I believe that it's even more important to 'outlaw' proprietary document formats.
All documents distributet from or to other government agencies should be in open formats. That will leave ASCII, HTML and PDF formats as the only viable options. As you know, making PDF from postscript is extremly simple.
No more distribution of Microsoft doc/ppt/xls/.. files will do the trick.
//Pingo
--- Linux or FreeBSD, it's like blondes or brunettes. I like both. ---
We ... are interested in interesting opinions about how the law might be improved, so [a local geek who will be testifying] can propose them.
This law as written is beautiful. It's a simple, to the point, expression of the will of the legislature that the government convert to open software wherever possible, as rapidly as is convenient.
In my opinion, any changes are more likely to break it than improve it. I'd be inclined to leave it just as it is for now.
================
A rule of thumb for any system design - government law or software - is to see what would happen if a deliberate attempt to misconstrue or circumvent its intent were made by the operator or outside parties. (The only operational difference between malice and mistake is that malice usually exercises the bugs and crashes the system a little sooner - so you look for system flaws as if you were looking for a way someone could deliberately break things, without implying that malice is actually present even if the system does crash later.)
The only potential hole I see is that the timetable is left open. So if both a division head and the chief executive were opposed, or if the chief executive didn't push subordinates who dragged their feet, the timetable could slip out indefinitely.
But it's appropriate to leave the timetable to the executive, rather than to try to micro-manage from the legislature. Execution is the executive's job. And I'd bet the chief executive is also in favor of this, or at least willing to go along with the will of the legislature. So I'd leave it as it is for now and revisit it in a few years to see how the conversion is coming.
If you're really concerned that something might fall through the cracks you might have the executive branch report every few years on the progress of the conversion, including a list of what hasn't been converted and why. After five or ten years if there's anything unconverted that the legislature hasn't been convinced SHOULDN'T be converted, then it might want to make changes to the law to give them a push.
(And I'd leave military systems up to the executive branch. Which I expect will insist on having source code for everything they commission, and on reverse-engineering any turnkey weapons systems they got from their allies. B-) )
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
(hope my english won't give this a 0 score ;)
But I'm really confused:This is true. Since a couple of years Argentina and other latam countries (ie Bolivia) are being pressured to legalize all their software.
In the meantime, I can see 3 advantages: huge gov. savings and legalization, GNU everywhere and a lot of people will have to study GNU tools...
and 2 big troubles: this kind of imposition can generate huge resistances on people used to M$ tools and also big pressures from monopol... tut-tut-tut
IamLarryboy,
Your post "Good Law But illegal under FTAA" is probably referring to Chapter 11 of the FTAA. I suggest you reread Chapter 11 and the details of the case you mention.
Chapter 11 allows companies to sue governments if governments enacts legislation that decrease corporate profits DUE TO TRADE BARRIERS. The last part is capitalized because I think that's the key point you're missing.
You can restrict commerce to all hell, but as long as foreign goods or services are restricted as much as local ones, Chapter 11 is useless.
I'm not as familiar with the Canada Post case as with another common complaint (the Ethyl Corp one - which most anti-free traders get wrong as well), but my understanding is that it didn't have as much to do with Canada Post being a Crown (ie, government owned) company as much as Canada Post owning and subsidizing Purilator Courrier, a large Fed-Ex-like company.
If the proposed legislation had a statue where an Argentine company could sell non-free software, but Microsoft couldn't, then FTAA would have something to say about it. As it is, Argentine companies are treated on the same grounds as foreign companies, so a company like Microsoft (or Corel in Canada or Connectiva in Brazil) have no recourse through FTAA (as they should).
The country was so broke the fmi had to give it billions of $ in order to stay afloat.
At the same moment m$ asked the government to pay for all its licenses and proposed a "deal".
perfect timing.
But this law may be a consequence of this m$ strategic move. People over there are very sensitive about freedom.
They know its value.
They are not forcing a specific product, but some specific rules in the marketplace. The US (or US companies) did this with processors a few years ago, i.e. they forced their suppliers to license the technology to competitors, to prevent having a single source (that's why AMD had access to Intel technology). This is a similar action, only they take it a bit further.
I don't see the problem some people are having with regulations in the marketplace. If a market economy can be compared with evolution, then regulation is just adding some conditions which prevents locally optimal, but globally catastrophic species from taking over. You have to remember that the marketplace selects for companies which are short-term beneficial to the investors, and this is rarely the long-term optimum for consumers or society.
In order to maintain an open and free government, the people must be able to understand all governmental processes (including limitations with their computers). It is not safe for any government to run software which it does not know how it operates... being able to review the source code and compile it yourself ensures security.
Also, since the government pays for all software with tax money, why shouldn't the people have access to that software? If I pay for the government to use software on its computers... I want access to that software I paid for.
Society has it embedded into its mind that "Corporations are always good, they always have the best interests of the market in mind" when that is not true. They instead have the best interests of their wallet in mind. Software companies do take bribes to modify software to suit certain people's needs... I would not doubt that the NSA has never paid MS for certain code changes to Windows that make spying easier.
Ever need an online dictionary?
Executives of Microsoft, IBM and Unisys are protesting a recent Argentine Supreme Court decision ruling that antiquated copyright laws don't cover computer software. Software makers point out that royalties aren't paid on about 70% of the software sold in Argentina, resulting in roughly $165 million in revenue losses annually. A recent study by Price Waterhouse & Co. indicates the biggest abusers are Argentine federal and local government agencies and small private businesses. "There's no culture in Argentina of assigning value to software," says a Unisys unit president. (Wall Street Journal 6 Feb 98).
"Featherbeds were long ago outlawed in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Why? Because such an indulgence induces and encourages lascivious feelings."
"Public servants in Argentina had better be on the ball and smile - It's illegal to be surly."
"An Argentina ordinance demands that disk jockeys play as many tango records as all other types of music combined."
"Teachers, especially those with large bustlines, face a serious peoblem in Cordoba, Argentina. A woman simply cannot be hired to teach if her chest is big. Why? Because lawmakers in Cordoba finally came to realize that a large, shapely chest is just "too much of a distraction for teenage boys in a classroom."
TheFrood
If you say "I'll probably get modded down for this..." then I will mod you down.
There's a meeting next week with the congress commission discussing this law and a a local geek was invited to give advice. We (we=people that has promoted this law and is trying to move it forward) are interested in interesting opinions about how the law might be improved, so he can propose them.
Please, comments wanted. Let's hack a bug-free law together!
Thanks,
Daniel (TrixX)
The financial savings are not the biggest benefit. I realize that there will be a huge pice to pay in training and development, that could be similar to the cost of propietary licenses.
But there are strong arguments for government use fo free software, like "National Security" (because the ability to guarantee no backdoors), "Technological independence" (remember that this is a 3rd world country, and propietary software involves depending on a foreign corporation), and "Control of information" (Citizens may be harmed when their public records are stored ("kidnapped") into propietary file formats)
The reason countries such as Argentina and India love free software is because it's cheap. Compared to many western countries, items in general are cheap. In many countries, one can either pay $500 for a copy of MS Office or hire someone at a decent salary for a year.
I knew someone from India who made more as an intern in the US than his father did as an Engineer in his native country. His father could take his family eating out every night if desired, yet his son lived in a [legitamite] shared home with eight others, barely making it along.
On one hand, you have companies that love foreign countries such as China for their labor. Remember the stories about a certain famous shoe manufactuer that makes their shoes abroad for $20 but sells them in the United States for $150? Companies love those types of deals. But other companies then try to sell their products in the local markets at US rates. For some reason, people making the equivalent of US $20 per month are not happy paying $500 for a computer, $500 for each program needed, etc. You've got to wonder why there are problems...
But I guess that would be too much work for a government. That would put too much responsibility in the hands of people with a chance of knowing what they are doing. Better to adopt a policy of all free software, or all Microsoft, or all Ada, and remove all freedom of choice. That way no one is able to make a good decision, err, I meant, no one is able to screw up.
I do have a question, though. Suppose (say for interoperability, because of evil closed document formats) the only possible word processor is MS Word. Now, Linux is a viable alternative to MS Windows, and hence mandated. Does the choice of MS Word mean they have to run MS Windows (pretend that there is no way to run Word from Linux), or will they run Linux and give up Word?
I've seen this situation before. A company standardizes on WordPerfect, but the secretaries have Word as well so they can deal with outside documents. They just change word processors based on what they're working on (actually, they only use Word, because they like it better, but don't tell anyone, that's their secret). I'm not sure how it would work if they had to reboot to switch word processors. Anyway, for a company this works great. They might lose business if they couldn't send or receive Word documents. For governments this isn't a concern; they can just serve their citizens less efficiently. It's not like the citizens have another choice.
Even Slashdot wants to hide some things
When I first saw the title I thought that the law may have covered all software used in a country, not just for the government. Luckily, it was just the government changing, leaving the consumer the right to choose. Although I fully support Linux and the free software movement, I disagree with this law for one major reason: the best product cannot always be used. If a commercial product does the job better, it will end up costing more to use the "free" software. In the end I believe that free software will be used by a majority of people, but not because of some law, but because free software will be a better product. Capitalism will sort out the winners from the losers.
What happens when the law is broken?
Just my $0.04 (adjusted for inflation)