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Peruvian Congressman vs. Microsoft FUD
An Anonymous Coward writes: "Carve a new face on the Mount Rushmore of Linux:
Peruvian Congressman David Villanueva Nuñez brilliantly vapourizes the Chicken Little division of the MS Fud Machine.
Long read but inspiring.
Add another name to the list of people who get
that 'All that is required for Evil to triumph
is that good men do nothing.'"
Update: 05/07 00:03 GMT by T : Antonio Ognio Cesti has an update: "We are some activists working
here in Peru to bring the documents
to more eyeballs with better bandwidth." They've done just that, writing, "Now we have much better hosting in the U.S. and the original FUD letter completely translated into English."
The difference is that I get +2 Funny karma (as of this posting) for saying "This was posted on Saturday." with some humor instead of -2 Redundant karma for just stating it blandly. Of course now that I have stupidly revealed my master plan, I will lose lots of karma from both of these posts. :)
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
It was translated. The links to the original versions are at the very top of the article.
Unfortunately, the links are down, so, google cache time!
Original Response
Original Microsoft FUD Letter
Both are in Spanish, BTW.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
There is a mirror in spanish:
Hay un espejo en español:
http://www.usm.edu.ec/~amadorm/index.php?p=217&c=1
Rudd-O - http://rudd-o.com/
From PBS Frontline:
Under the terms of NAFTA, an environmental regulation is regarded as a "taking" and the state may have to pay a huge settlement to the manufacturer.
Nope, no sig
Sunday was a great day for reading intelligent and insightful commentary on Free Software and Copyleft.
/. comments.)
First, I got up to read the letter mentioned here. (Was that really the congressman who penned that?? Wow. In any event, what a very nice read.)
Next, I go to the bookstore and stumble across:
Free, as in Speech and Beer, absolutey without peer as the _best_ most insightful book on copyleft and free software and its implications that I have yet read.
(And I've read a bunch of them.)
The strangest thing: I'd never even heard of it. It was just sitting there on the new releases.
Read the letter above, then go and buy the book, too. On both counts you will be pleasantly surprised at the quality of discourse taking place on the topics we all care about. (Something you don't always get from
The book doesn't appear to be at Amazon yet, but what the hey... Canadian dollars are cheap! (The link above is to the Canadian equivalent of Amazon/B&N)
(What did we do before google? ;)
http://www.pcworldmalta.com/specials/MSPiracy
PARIS (11/28/2001) - The French subsidiary of one of the world's most vocal opponents of software piracy has itself been convicted of pirating a French 3D animation program. This is the first ruling on a matter that dates back to 1995, when Microsoft Corp. bought Softimage, a 3D computer-generated image (CGI) specialist whose software violated the intellectual property of a small French software house.
The Commercial Court of Nanterre fined Microsoft France 3 million francs (US$422,000) in damage and interest for software piracy. "It's a start," said a lawyer for the plaintiffs, "although Microsoft continues to stall on the provisional execution of the judgment."
Some fact-checking shows the following:
. htm) is a real member of the Congress. His email is evillanueva@congreso.gob.pe.
Congressman Edgar David Villanueva Nunez (www.congreso.gob.pe/congresista/2001/evillanueva
If you go to the page mentioned above, you will see some pictures/buttons at the top left. Click the one that shows some fingers holding a pen ('Proyectos de ley presentados'/Projects). He apparently introduced 25 pieces of legislation in the First Session in 2001, and 7 during the Second Session.
During the First Session, he introduced Bill 1609, 'Software Libre' (Free Software). It was sent to two Committees on 7 January 2002: Education, Science, & Technology, and to Consumer Protection and Public Services Regulation.
He introduced a similar bill in the Second Session, number 2485, 'Use of Free Software by the Public Administration.' As of 12 April 2002, it is in the same Committees as the first bill (1609).
I would post both Bills here, but a) they are looong, and 2) they are en espanol. So, if you want to read them.....the full text of both Bills are available through Congressman Villanueva Nunez's page.
Happy babelfishing!
In NZ, we have a law firm taking Microsoft to the commerce commission for issues related to Software Assurance. He has writen a very nice brief outlining many of the issues, and it is well worth a read. Click here to read more. There are links to various letters and news articles covering this issue.
One big point that the Commerce Commission raised, is that if SA is such a big issue, why aren't bigger companies and countries picking it up?!
The American system is not a democracy. It is a constitutional republic. A democracy, if you attach meaning to terms, is a system of unlimited majority rule; the classic example is ancient Athens. And the symbol of it is the fate of Socrates, who was put to death legally, because the majority didn't like what he was saying, although he had initiated no force and had violated no one's rights.
Democracy, in short, is a form of collectivism, which denies individual rights: the majority can do whatever it wants with no restrictions. In principle, the democratic government is all-powerful. Democracy is a totalitarian manifestation; it is not a form of freedom....
The American system is a constitutionally limited republic, restricted to the protectrion of individual rights. In such a system, majority rule is applicable only to lesser details, such as the selection of certain personnel. But the majority has no say over the basic principles governing the government. It has no power to ask for or gain the infringement of individual rights.
--Leonard Peikfoff
The Bill is specific to all software used in the public domain. This means libraries, government offices, etc.
The bills main purpose is to ensure that there's no possibility of data access being dependant on a private 3rd party. The citizens entrust the goverment with their data and the goverment is making sure that they will always be able to provide it free of charge.
To not have the source code makes you 100% dependant on the company that produces it. Lets say terrorists blow up all the MS buildings and MS somehow falls off the face of the earth. 2 days later a security hole is found and a worm compromises every system running Outlook (Not hard to believe). Who will create the patch? What would happen is the US government would do like they did during Melissa and other worms. They pull the plug on internet access and data is no longer available to the people.
The other rebuttals are simply a way of giving MS the finger for trying such lame FUD tactics on a guy that's obviously technically competent and intelligent. I love it.
- We need to get doctors in congress like that one.
- Democracy is a form of do-it-yourself open source by the people.
- If history has shown anything, the OS wars are following similar lines as other tragic events in history:
Starting with Microsoft rejecting the feasability of open source:
1) Totalitarian govermnents that reject the existence of neighboring nations, usually in an attempt to acquire them.
2) Regimes that descriminate between their people, implying that some are citizens while others have no rights.
3) Large religions that have no tolerance over beliefs that appear to challenge their ways. These beliefs could be alternate religions, political opionions, or even scientific discoveries. The imposing religions make statements that the "non-believers" are damned. They associate elements of the others with their own fictional evil elements to the point that "acknowledging a hell implies acceptance of the oppressor's religion". They actively proselytize (convert), persecute, excommunicate, interrogate, censor, to further their own unknown agendas. This also includes denying the existence of the other beliefs.
Bad things happen when you trust the wrong people.
Private companies are free to buy whatever they want from whoever they want. The WTO rules prohibit governments from imposing unfair restrictions. This is specifically relevant to discrimination between domestic and foreign companies. I am pretty sure that the choice of words in the response letter is meant to address exactly the WTO regulations.
-- ESH
I am not certain that neo-liberal international fora will agree with the Congressman's position. MS will say "we cannot sell to the public sector in Peru w/o having our IP expropriated" and I wouldn't be shocked if a WTO or FTAA tribunal was sympathetic.
I would be extremely surprised if MS isn't talking to USTR to apply pressure. MS is definitely not shy talking to USTR (think about US pressure on China to stop piracy) or about trying to get other countries laws changed (a la Sri Lanka).
Same here in Mexico, actually the RedEscolar proyect was killed not for lack of support, but because the right wing, pro corporate PAN party came to power. RedEscolar was then replaced by the EMexico initiative, which of course is backed by Microsoft and Intel
No sig for the moment.
The translation of the Dr. Villanueva-Nuñez is so elegant, and the machine translations of the original MicroSoft letter so fish-fuddled, I decided to make a clean copy of the original letter (mostly by cutting and pasting from the good Congressman's reply).
My hope is that this way the apparent brain-deadedness of the babelfished text can be flensed away, revealing the true brain-deadedness of the arguments themselves in all their glory. ;)
San Isidro, March 21st 2002
Mr:
Edgar Villanueva Nuñez
Congressman of the Republic of Peru
Present.-
Dear sir:
First of all, we want to thank you for the chance you gave us to inform you about our work in this country for benefit of the public sector, always looking for the best ways to implement programs that will let us consolidate the initiatives of modernization and transparency in the State.
In fact, thanks to our meeting today you are aware of our global achievements at the international level in the design of new services for the citizen, within the framework of a model State that respects and protects intellectual property.
The actions we talked about are part of a global initiative, and today there exist several experiences which have let us collaborate with programs supporting the State and community in the adoption of technology as a strategic element impacting the quality of life of the citizens.
Furthermore, as arranged in this meeting, we assisted the forum organized in the Congress on March 6th regarding the law project that you are leading, wherein we got the chance to listen to several presentations which lead us now to explain our position so you have a wider grasp of the real situation.
The bill makes it compulsory for all public bodies to use only free software, that is to say open source software, which breaches the principles of equality before the law, that of non-discrimination and the right of free private enterprise, freedom of industry and of contract, protected by the constitution.
The bill, by making the use of open source software compulsory, would establish discriminatory and non competitive practices in the contracting and purchasing by public bodies, violating the base principles of the "Law of State Contracting and Aquisitions" (Number 26850)
So, by compelling the State to favour a business model based entirely on open source, the bill would only discourage the local and international manufacturing companies, which are the ones which really undertake important expenditures, create a significant number of direct and indirect jobs, as well as contributing to the GNP, as opposed to a model of open source software which tends to have an ever weaker economic impact, since it mainly creates jobs in the service sector.
The bill imposes the use of open source software without considering the dangers that this can bring from the point of view of security, guarantee, and possible violation of the intellectual property rights of third parties.
The bill uses the concept of open source software incorrectly, since it does not necessarily imply that the software is free or of zero cost, and so arrives at mistaken conclusions regarding State savings, with no cost-benefit analysis to validate its position.
It is wrong to think that Open Source Software is free of charge. Research by the Gartner Group (an important investigator of the technological market recognized at world level) has shown that the cost of purchase of software (operating system and applications) is only 8% of the total cost which firms and institutions take on for a rational and truely beneficial use of the technology. The other 92% consists of: installation costs, enabling, support, maintenance, administration, and down-time.
One of the arguments behind the bill is the supposed freedom from costs of open-source software, compared with the costs of commercial software, without taking into account the fact that there exist types of volume licensing which can be highly advantageous for the State, as has happened in other countries.
In addition, the alternative adopted by the bill (i) is clearly more expensive, due to the high costs of software migration, and (ii) puts at risk compatibility and interoperability of the IT platforms within the State, and between the State and the private sector, given the hundreds of versions of open source software on the market.
The majority of open source code does not offer adequate levels of service nor the guarantee from recognized manufacturers of high productivity on the part of the users, which has led various public organizations to retract their decision to go with an open source software solution and to use commercial software in its place.
The bill demotivates the creativity of the peruvian software industry, which invoices 40 million US$/year, exports 4 million US$ (10th in ranking among non-traditional exports, more than handicrafts) and is a source of highly qualified employment. With a law that incentivates the use of open source, software programmers lose their intellectual property rights and their main source of payment.
Open source software, since it can be distributed without charge, does not allow the generation of income for its developers through exports. In this way, the multiplier effect of the sale of software to other countries is weakened, and so in turn is the growth of the industry, while Government rules ought on the contrary to stimulate local industry.
In the Forum, the use of open source software in education was discussed, without mentioning the complete collapse of this initiative in a country like Mexico, where precisely the State employees who founded the project now state that open source software did not make it possible to offer a learning experience to pupils in the schools, did not take into account the capability at a national level to give adequate support to the platform, and that the software did not and does not allow for the levels of platform integration that now exist in schools.
If open source software satisfies all the requirements of State bodies, why do you need a law to adopt it? Shouldn't it be the market which decides freely which products give most benefits or value?
I really want to thank you for your attention to this letter, and we want to reiterate our interest in meeting you to explain to you in more detail our point of view about the bill you have presented, and to be at your complete disposal to share experiences and information which we are sure can help better analyse and implement an initiative looking to modernization and transparency of the State for the benefit of the citizen.
Sincerely,
Juan Alberto González
General Manager
Microsoft Perú
I'm part of a similar initiative in Argentina (I'm not Peruvian) which is closely related, so I can tell you the story from here.
The Argentinian Free Software Law proposal has been around for more than a year now. You can read about it at http://www.grulic.org.ar/proposicion. It was written by a congressman and improved by a bunch of geeks on a mailing list who offered him (idelogical) support.
At some time in the middle, the Peruvian LUG found about it, liked it, and tried to find a Congressman there to do something similar (in fact, both law proposals are identical). They found Congressman Villanueva Nuñez.
Our group has contact with the Peruvians, and some people from here have travelled there to offer ideas, and even helped with the writing of this letter (yes, it takes some mistycism about it away but is true: geeks participated in the writing of the letter).
Hope that feeds your curiosity. You have lots of info at the site i noted above, and at the Peruvian LUG (slashdotted right now).