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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."
Yes, this was just posted Saturday, but I'll bet a lot of people don't look back at stuff from the weekends. That being said ...
His letter is a long way of saying, "Please decide which side of your mouth to speak out of." By the third time he pointed out, "This contradicts what you said in the previous paragraph," I had tears streaming down my face.
This contradiction alone would invalidate your position.
...
This argument repeats that already given in paragraph 5 and partly contradicts paragraph 3. For the sake of brevity we refer to the comments on those paragraphs.
...
In addition, in this paragraph you correctly point out that the service components and losses due to down-time make up the largest part of the total cost of software use, which, as you will note, contradicts your statement regarding the small value of services suggested in paragraph 3.
...
On the other hand, there certainly exist types of volume licensing (although unfortunately proprietary software does not satisfy the basic principles). But as you correctly pointed out in the immediately precding paragraph of your letter, they only manage to reduce the impact of a component which makes up no more than 8% of the total.
Nope, no sig
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.
Everyone of the argument planks in the proposed bill is good, and not just for Peru. Every sovereign government based upon the ideas of representative democracy can expect similar gains if they were to follow the same principles. They are logical principles.
Free, unencumbered and open communication are the hallmarks of any society that hopes to better itself. Restricting communication to those who can afford to pay for a read/write access device, such as MS Word or Corel Wordperfect or whatever, is an inefficiency, pure and simple.
Enduring archival of public documents is, likewise, important for any society that wishes to learn from history instead of repeating the same mistakes. A written language used to be enough to guarantee such archival. Now, the essential medium is no longer paper, but the authoring and reading of documents is no longer just a matter of learning how to read and write, it's become of matter of having paid all of the taxes.
National security issues of knowing exactly what it is you are running. This is one issue that largely continues beneath the surface. It's very surprising to me that in the post 9/11 world that more hasn't been made of critical infrastructure running only programs you can see for yourself and compile for yourself.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
I don't understand why there is so much aggrivated rivalry between Linux, BSD, OSX, etc. Friendly competition, and even friendly jibes, are understandable. But the 'ha ha, it's BSD not linux!' or vice versa, is childish and regressive.
I've been using Linux since 1996, and I love it. But I don't feel any enmity with the BSD folk, or any other free software/OSS system. I use RedHat. Not because it's necessarily better, but it works for me and I like it. But if you like Debian, or Gentoo, or SuSE, more power to you! I don't feel the need to inflict my choice on you.
Competition is good. Gnome vs KDE is good for both sides. It stimulates thought and advancement. Same goes for Linux vs BSD. I mean, come on! Most of the software even runs on both platforms!
MS, on the other hand, isn't about competition. It's about crushing everything that isn't MS. They don't give you a choice. In fact, the take away choices that you already have. That's worth fighting against.
If Peru goes BSD, then great! If they use Linux, fantastic! It doesn't matter, because it means freedom in either case. It also means great interoperability, because Linux & BSD get along just fine in a heterogenous environment. So they could use BSD *and* Linux! That's the whole point.
I've read a bit of the Federalist Papers (okay, it was just Alexander Hamilton's brilliant first paper... it goes downhill as soon as you get to John Jay's first writing) and of course we've all read the Declaration of Independence and other such great documents. And this reads like one of those documents. This guy could give lessons in what being a Democratic and Free state really means to the US Government. In fact, I think this letter should be required reading for all US Government officials.
I'd even go as far as to say we should begin a letter-writing campaign to mail copies of this to our congress-critters, to the White House, and to the national news media.
I'm going to put this on my TODO: list. I am going to draft a letter with these contents, and mail them to the people who represent me.
As the submitter said, "All that is required for Evil to triumph is that good men do nothing." I may not be a perfectly good man, but I'm going to do SOMETHING!
Just lay off the editors. They've got other things to do like spending working day after working day in front of their playstations. They are also responsible for planning and resourcing trips to the movie theatre. You think that the deep and insightful movie reviews that we are lucky enough to find here just appear out of thin air?
We should be thankful that they're busy schedules allow any resources at all to be devoted to posting and researching these stories. Who can honestly say that its humanly possible for any of them to pay attention to what was posted only 24 to 48 hours ago? Any of us would surely make the same mistakes after our 10th hour of redbulled fueled Final Fantasy.
And don't you dare mention any thing like a review period or even the most simplistic of approval mechanisms for their postings. Because you would then clearly be in league with the RIAA, BillG, (or insert favorite techno-nazi here) and denying them their right to post whatever they want when they want.
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)
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!
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