Free Software Law in Peruvian Congress

An Anonymous Coward writes "There is a story on oreillynet.com on the response by a Peruvian Congressman to Microsoft's letter opposing a proposed Free Software Law. Here's the translated letter and this is the original letter that Microsoft submitted in response to the proposed law. It's always cool to see governments trying to enact these kinds of laws and watch the Microsoft backlash against them :)."

Comments

A great read

[oneeyedman]

I don't know when I've enjoyed reading a long, lawyerly letter so much. (I can't imagine that this was really written by a congressman, though it would be nice to think so.) An earlier poster commented that we have all heard these arguments before on Slashdot. Well, not necessarily. There is a big difference between advocates and insiders trading views they already share, and watching a masterful display of reasoned analysis about genuinely different viewpoints. The letter puts the official Microsoft position through the Bass-O-Matic by out-arguing it, not by shouting back or by storming off in a rhetorical huff.

If Microsoft's public statements were held to this level of logic and clarity more often, we would have a very different software market. Advertising and other sorts of propaganda are so pervasive that I think we tend to forget what a real debate looks like. This Peruvian congressman reveals just how shallow Microsoft's self-interested arguments against free software really are. It makes them look both stupid and shrill.

Good work!

You're all karma whores...

[7-Vodka]

Don't chop off the letter. Let everyone read it in full. I was amazed by it, maybe you will be too. That letter is a flaming example of lucid thinking and straight talking... and it's from a politician folks. I wish I could vote for THAT guy to represent ME here in the US. When was the last time you heard an american politician talk about this issue at all? Hell, I've never heard an american politician even manage to take an important and complicated issue such as this and state it so clearly a teenager could understand it. Let's see M$ try to wriggle out of this response (hint: you'll not see it).

Now back to the U.S. What can we do to get OUR government to pass a bill like this? Any suggestions? I'm thinking about sending a letter to congressmen informing them of how free software is starting to be used in other countries and maybe even sending them letters like these as supporting evidence.

Re:These countries understand what the US doesn't.

[AJWM]

I find it rather funny that a lot of "Open Source" proponents, who obviously aren't really programmers,

Well, this particular Open Source proponent has been earning a good living as a professional programmer (software engineer, programmmer analyst, whatever the current job title fashion is) for over twenty years.

A lot of that has been in-house development, not software-for-sale, and indeed that's where most of the market for programmers is. I've also developed software for sale -- one program went for something like $10,000 a copy (mainframe software), and included source (thus fitting Peru's requirement). I've also worked for a company that wouldn't even talk to a customer unless it looked like they had at least a quarter million dollars to spend. The core of that was closed, the customization scripts were open -- and the contracts typically included source to the binaries in escrow.

But much of the programming I've done is for in-house software that there'd be no other market for even if free, the stuff is either highly tailored to the specific practices of that company, or was one-off type stuff to, for example, fix data errors in a database, or generate specific statistical reports, etc. Then there's the stuff that isn't actually programming that is still part of the job: analysis, design, spec writing, training, tech support, evaluation of third-party software, etc, etc, all of which was worth money to somebody.

If you don't understand that, then you're clearly very naive about what the real job of most programmers really is, and can only conclude you haven't been out in the real world for more than few months.