Requiring Software Freedom

An Anonymous Coward writes: "CNET is carrying a story about the increasing momentum that Open Source software and 'Software Libre' are gaining in Latin and South America and Europe. A certain company from Redmond WA USA is mentioned several times in the article as the impetus to free foreign governments from certain onerous licensing agreements (not to mention the cost savings involved). It is interesting that some of these governmental entities are actually requiring the use of Software Libre, not just encouraging it. Maybe it's time to visit Rio?"

Comments

Software Libre -- A Compromise?

[Whyte Wolf]

What I find most interesting about this Software Libre idea as proposed by some of the legaslative bodies involved is their definition of it. They seem to want to avoid the "Open Source vs. Free Software" rhetoric that we've been seeing recently--but even more interestingly, it seems that they're combining the two key factors the Free Software and Open Source communities expouse:

Firstly, the freedom to do what you will with the software. Who wants their government's (and by extension their) rights to use software restricted by a multi-national headquartered in another country?

And Secondly, the price is right. I'd rather see my tax dollars go towards quality software and support, -and- other services, than into MS's pocket for proprietary software that doesn't work (anyone remember Russia's lost nuclear materials? thanks MS SQLServer.)

A natural course of action

[GreyPoopon]

Based on the somewhat limited success (so far) of the DOJ's case against Microsoft, this is a pretty predictable happening. Maybe other countries in the world are doing this for different reasons, but I can't help but think they've factored the prospect of Microsoft getting more out of control than now and inestimable licensing costs. Unless the leverage Microsoft uses from its monopoly on desktop Operating Systems is somehow broken, many countries will have no choice but to go this route.

I wonder what true effects this will have on the quality and quantity of free software.

Where's the freedom?

[seanmeister]

I'm not looking to troll or start a flamewar here (I use Free software every day), but if one is required by law to use Free software, doesn't that represent a loss of freedom? Isn't freedom of choice important as well?

Also an enormous trade imbalance

[gelfling]

LA countries are moving quickly into the double whammy of currency crises and recession. Argentina and Brazil represent huge ecnomic problems. What better reason to not export cash out of the country on increasingly poor terms, eg. dollars when local currency is dropping like a stone. So the natural consequence is to look for ways to keep the money in-country and if possible, not spend it at all. This way LA countries can not only save cash but can help prop up local employment by breeding a cadre of support personnel.

nitpick

[grue23]

From the article:

In Europe, where numerous bills and resolutions have been introduced, local, state and federal governments spent $7.8 billion on software in 2000. In Brazil, governments spent a mere $200 million the same year, an indication of how little the country has to spend on software and why free or low-priced software holds such powerful appeal.

This may look impressive, but one should also consider exactly what goes into the estimated costs on software purchases. If these estimates include the cost of man-hours for producing custom software, this is not going to be a fair comparison because it will have more to do with how much money European countries are putting into, say, development of custom military software than it will have to do with what OS the foreign ministry is using for their desktops. I browsed the net a bit but was unable to find out what the size of the budgets of all of the European countries was in comparison with the size of Brazil's budget. It would be much more compelling to see what percent of Brazil's budget was spent on software in comparison with the percent of the countries in Europe.

As a side note, I know for a fact that the US military uses free operating systems and free build tools for some of their software, but they are still pouring a ton of money into the man-hours to create that custom software.

While I advocate the use of free software, and agree that it will help save some money, the comparison between Brazil and Europe in this article is fairly ridiculous because of the likely nature of their software expenditures. This may be a little off the subject, but a pet peeve of mine is when articles throw out fairly meaningless numbers to attempt to support their point.

Re:Monopoly != Bad

[truthsearch]

True, but in this particular instance, monopolies are bad. Relying on one and only one vendor means the government is handcuffed to their business model, bug fix decisions and schedule, and feature enhancements. They can't look to another company to add an enhancement to the OS if it's closed, much less by a monopoly.