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Countries Ponder: GNU/Linux vs. Microsoft
koody writes: "IDG has an overview of how many countries are getting drawn into the debate over the relative merits of using open source software rather than Microsoft Corp.'s Windows applications. Seems like many countries would be slowly moving towards the open source community, while a few still pledge allegiance to Microsoft."
What are the numbers there? How many use Linux? How many use MS Windows? I would guess that, for now, Linux == few and MS == many. But, I would like to see real numbers.
Michael Loves Me!
Well to help get a wider accecptance it is a good thing that governments are deciding to look at alternitives to MS stuff. And this helps to push more MS People to understanding and even perhaps liking to use Linux. With more people using it more software will be made (Open Sourse and Closed Source). Thus helping of actually giving people a choice in OSes. We long got away from the Idea of the Right Tool for the Right Job. I think it is time that we come back to that Idea.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Seems like IBM is making out like gangbusters in
these deals.
Perhaps there was something to that slashback article
last night....
The article mentioned a few developments in Finland.
...' " (references to German decision, etc.)
There's also a newer one, made by a member of Finnish parliament Kyösti Karjula (Center Party):
"Member of Parliament Kyösti Karjula and three other members have made an initiative for the government to take practical measures towards to adopt the Linux operating system in public administration. According to the members, the advantages of Linux are financial savings and better security than in Windows.
'There is also a significant technology political reason for changing over to Linux, because a system based on open source makes it possible to advance [Finnish] know-how.
In December 2001, the IT Department of City of Turku published their final report on adopting OpenOffice and Linux for the city computer systems. The report takes a "negative" approach, listing the problems encountered, so it's rather interesting read. In the conclusions, they recommended the adoption of OpenOffice and Linux, and to proceed with an extended study and a pilot period.
Turku (my home city) has a population of about 160,000 and the city has about 3000 computers. However, if Turku adopts Linux, dozens of the surrounding small (and large) munincipalities will follow.
# telnet www.lp.org 80 /index.html HTTP/1.1
/index.html HTTP/1.1
/index.html HTTP/1.1
GET
Host: www.lp.org
Blah...
Server: Apache 1.3.23 (Unix) PHP/4.1.2
More Blah
# telnet www.democrats.org
GET
Host: www.democrats.org
Blah...
Server: Apache/1.3.22 (Unix) mod_perl/1.26
More Blah
# telnet www.gop.org 80
GET
Host: www.gop.org
Blah...
Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0
More Blah
What does this proove? That all three parties do what they say they will do. The libertarians dont want to spend money on proprietary software because they believe in absolute freedom for each and every person.
The democrats use free software because they hate big corporations and want communism. I have heard open source software described as being communistic in nature, and I dont entirely disagree.
The republicans are rich, like big companies, and like to support big companies. True capatalists, not nessecarily a bad thing.
My vote goes to the Libertarian Pary. Just my $0.02.
(B) + (D) + (B) + (D) = (K) + (&)
How could a government mandate operating system diversity? If several departments were using Linux, and another wanted to switch, they would be unable to because the nation had already reached their Linux quota? That would be interesting, to say the least...
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
But this whole "everything is either Microsoft or free-as-in-lint" dichotomy is too simple for anyone but retarded schoolchildren.
That's true, but only because it's not about Microsoft, it's about money. Microsoft is simply the exemplar.
Once money gets involved in software development -- or for that matter, once money gets involved in anything -- it has a hugely out-of-proportion influence on how things are run from that time forward. People who contribute money want a say in things; few contributors have the discipline needed to simply give. Products that bring money for their creators tempt those creators with material rewards; few creators have the discipline to question the motivation of each and every one of their own decisions.
Worst of all, money is perceived as power, and, as Frank Herbert said, "Power attracts the corruptible." Once there is money involved, legions of people who believe in or pretend to believe in such fictions as "business ethics" show up. Some number of them are convincing liars who will tell you how your desire to help more people can be enhanced by better marketing, or how having more money will let you do more... isn't that a *good* thing?
I don't trust Apple or Sun because they are in business. They're in business to make money. They're not ashamed of this. Hell, they're *proud* of it! They brag about it to their stockholders. Yes, stockholders. They're not small businesses where a desire for great software and freedom for everyone can have a mellowing influence on decisions. They're big corporations with marketing departments paying money for ads to create the feeling that these big corporations care about something besides getting even more money.
When you remember that Apple runner freeing all the brainwashed 1984 people, or read about Sun's "Connected Communities", remember that people with marketing degrees -- people who were trained for years in methods to distort the truth for business purposes -- created those images to make you feel a certain way about the companies that sign their paychecks.
One of many reasons I work as much as possible with free-as-in-speech software is that it's often free-as-in-beer, too. When there is money involved, it's *less* money. This minimizes the corruption that comes with money by simply having *less* money.
Or even *no* money. There are lots of people busting their asses making great software and giving it away because they believe in excellence in their work and in helping others. If you were designing a perfect world from scratch, isn't that the sort of person you'd want in charge of making things? Aren't *they* the people we should support?
Ellen
mods metamodded as "Unfair"
This debate is far more complex than a simple choice of what OS to use at a government level.
This isn't simply an OS jihad. Where Linux == Good and Windows == Bad. Making business (cause that's what a lot of government is) decisions based on software "religion" is stupid and misguided.
The points that the congressman from Peru (I forget his name) made about using open source software were some of the most valid, and well reasoned ones I have heard in a long time. But - clearly his argument progresses beyond simple selection of the operating system to the systems used to create, maintain, and access the data used to run a govenment.
Here in the USA - govenment money is used to fund all sorts of private development. Look at defense research. Boeing, and all those guys are _private_ companies that acquire patents on inventions that were paid for with government monies. They then sell finished product to the govenment, further profitting from this relationship. As a tax payer you might be more than a little outraged by this.
So the question you have to ask yourself is: Do you want your government funding the r&d of proprietary software? That's one aspect of this debate.
Another question is: Do you want your government using proprietary software? If they are, then it has a cost over time in licensing fees. It also leads to the following -
Do you want your government to store data files in a proprietary format whose layout is held by some private company? (it's one thing if the gov. develops it's own data formats and properly documents them, it's a whole nother game when the format is externally owned).
Probably, in many cases your answer is "NO" to all three of these questions. But, then you have to ask yourself whether or not there is a serious open source, free software alternative to some of the commercial offerings. In many cases, yes. But, in just as many, no.
Other questions that come to mind are: Would you really want your government systems run off of current open source/free software systems? Being fair, you have to consider the bugs in those systems (beyond the simple anecdotal evidence) - and the "spit and polish" of those systems.
Do you really want your government in the "software" business? Maybe, maybe not. There's a reason so many governments sub-contract work out to professionals and specialists. Sure, the gov. usually attaches all sorts of conditions (specs and requirements) so that the end product is well documented - but private companies do the work. Given how effective government is at some tasks, I'm not sure I want them writing software!
...Food for thought...
The GPL ensures works or derivitaves STAY FREE.
BSD and Proprietary licences ensure works or derivatives BECOME or STAY UNFREE.
Using public money to create works or derivatives that become or stay unfree is ridiculous.
There is no place for BSD or any other Proprietary licencing scheme where MY MONEY is concerned.
It really pisses me off to pay for something twice. Once by taxation for the reasearch to create a resource and again for that same resource at retail.
Fucking corperate welfare. Drugs. Software. Commercial Space Launch. Alternative Energy. Agribusiness. Cheap Oil Royalties. Commercial Use highways.
Microsoft uses the BSD TCP/IP stack for free, then sells it to us. Any Taxpayer sponsored research should NEVER use a BSD style licence. If a corporation benefits from my tax dollars, They should not be able to sell the fruits of that research back to me for profit.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
from the article:
"Thailand:
A government-subsidized technology development group, known as the National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre, or Nactec, announced in April that it has developed its own package of open source software for use o n government desktop computers and servers. Linux-SIS (School Internet Server) for servers and Linux TLE (Thai Linux Extension) for desktops are based on the version of the Linux operating system from Red Hat Inc, a Raleigh, North Carolina, software company. Nactec has made the software freely available to government groups and small businesses. The project , government officials said, aims to narrow the gap between pirated software and legal software use, and promote local business development."
I submitted a story on this a while back, so I will elaborate here. The agency is actually NECTEC (not Nactec), and they have developed a Thai language distro. Thai is problematic because of it's eight bit characters, and vowels that can appear in front, behind, above, or below the consonant. Modifying the many English 7 bit centric apps in RH to work with Thai was no small feat. They also have a web page devoted to training ex-windows users. At this point, it is incomplete.
This is an attempt to curb the estimated 93% piracy rate in the country. It is causing all kinds of problems with the WTO. This distro has been featured front page in four major computer magazines in the last three months. The general review by all the magazines was that it is good, but shouldn't replace Windows. In a primary example of the poor quality of the reviews, the reviewers were unable to mount their windows partition or change the encoding on a web page in konqueror. I am using this distro right now, but have used the apt-get utility which comes pre-installed to dist-upgrade to RH7.3, and everything still works.
Tangentially, Sun has released an all Thai version of open office, called Pladao ("Star Fish") for free, and it is being widely accepted by the mainstream media because it runs on Windows. Solaris and Linux versions are also available. I use this program regularly along with OO 1.0.0 (why the extra 0?) on my machine. It is being written of and reviewed as open source, even though no source is available, so I am confused. I suspect people are confusing OS with "free to use."
Thailand is committed to OS, and has computer standard for OS retail machines and advocacy programs in place. The government wants to stop sending so much of its meager supply of cash to the west.
Put identity in the browser.