Microsoft in Peru, Living Room

Two pieces of Microsoft news today. tfofurn writes "According to this AP quickie and this Reuters story, both on Yahoo, Microsoft is donating 'about $550,000 in money, software and consulting services to the Peruvian government for educational and "e-government" initiatives' to Peru. The AP story mentions the conflict of this with Edgar Villanueva's proposal to have the government use only open source software. Villanueva (/. interview), you may recall, wrote a famous letter to MS Peru a few months ago." And many people have submitted stories about Windows XP Media Center, coming this winter to a living room near you.

Comments

Will everybody do the same?

[jmv]

It seems like MS is sending the message: "If you want to have 'free' MS software, say you're going Linux". Wonder how many organizations/countries without any intent to switch to Linux (will) have "Linux programs" just for negotiating with MS?

Re:Will everybody do the same?

[Malor]

Sure, but this is only a temporary gambit. Once you're hooked on Microsoft, getting yourself off it is terribly painful and difficult.

This is not a gift. It is a free sample from a drug dealer.

Consider... even if lots of countries start talking about Linux every time they want free software from Microsoft, there will eventually come a time when Microsoft will just chuckle and tell them to go right ahead. By then, they'll have built enough 'issues' into interoperability with free software that it will be difficult to make it work without totally ripping out the existing infrastructure... and very, very few politicians will have the guts to put their governments through that kind of pain.

I hope that Peru has enough foresight to ignore this 'gift'. Mr. Villaneuva shows extraordinary intelligence in his analysis of free software, which gives me hope that they may indeed see the iron fist under the velvet glove.

Re:Will everybody do the same?

[malakai]

Oh please.

And if you were a company 100% on Linux or some other Unix flavor, you think switching to MS would not be "terribly painful and difficult".

It's like this for any large company that does the most minor switch. OS switches are simply 10x more painfull. Try switching email clients, or email servers, or version control systems, or development environments... that's pain.

Also, once your hooked on MS, the only reason you want to get off that boat is generally because of $$$. Which is generally going to pay for you to switch to some other system. But you forget, most companies are completely satisfied with the MS desktop/server line and consider the expense an investment. And at many companies, this expenses is so small compared with their bottom line, the concept of switching in order to save money will not make business sense. If it works, and does what they want it to do, why switch?

-malakai

Re:Will everybody do the same?

[Jason Earl]

During Christmas time it is a fairly common practice (or it used to be when I lived in Peru) for the police to simply pull over motorists and demand money. Bribes are very commonplace in Peru any time of the year, but during Christmas the police stop even pretending to be upholding the law. They have got guns and you don't, and their children need Christmas presents and Paneton.

Lima is a city of something like 7 million people and this "donation" is supposed to help something like 20,000 students (a pittance). My guess is that it ends up helping far fewer students than that, and all of the help will likely go to the rich private schools that the politicos send their children too.

Unfortunately it is impossible to do business in Peru without bribery. I am just surprised that Bill Gates himself is delivering the money. When I first heard that Peru was looking at Free Software legislation I was very skeptical. There are lots of good people in Peru, and I don't doubt that Dr. Villanueva is an honest man and a patriot, but honest Peruvian officials are few and far between.

if we subtract the 'free' software total...

[NotAnotherReboot]

If we subtract the 'free' software total from that sum, how much is Microsoft actually contributing? $5?

This seems eerily similar to that settlement involving 'free' software to public schools.

Re:if we subtract the 'free' software total...

[rnturn]

``This seems eerily similar to that settlement involving 'free' software to public schools.''

Yep. It's free until the BSA comes knocking in a year or so.

These donations seem a bit too much like those sales pitches for DSL that tell you ``only $19.95 a month' And then, very quitely, ``after the first two months regular prices apply. Other restrictions apply.'' Accepting a donation from Microsoft is, I think, a good indication that you're either: a) soft in the head, b) a natural born sucker, or c) both a) and b).

As you should when offered drugs: Just Say No.

You won't be able to sell it

[yerricde]

then they'll send me a bunch of free software

The only "free software" that Microsoft distributes is the GPL'd components of Interix, MS's competitor to Red Hat's Cygwin. I'll assume that by "free software" you mean "royalty-free licenses for Microsoft software".

which I can then resell on Ebay.

I don't think so. Microsoft would be more likely to give you a free, non-transferable license to use the software. Given the outcome the last time Microsoft products were offered on eBay, Microsoft Licensing isn't as naive as some Slashdot readers would think.

Call to code...

[Whispers_in_the_dark]

(Pertaining to the MS living room part of the topic)

It sounds to me like someone (Mandrake maybe?) needs to come out with a Linux distro that mates well with the Wal-Boxen that are coming out now so that a plug-and-play competitor is available. I'd sure buy one (especially if it could also be DirecTV compatible somehow). I know TiVo's out there and has fine Linux support but an open-source variation that doesn't require a monthly fee would be something I'd be interested in.

This is going to turn into a racket.

[Spazntwich]

Remember when everyone first discovered that if you call to cancel AOL, they give you several months free just so you don't leave? I can see a lot of governments learning from Peru's example: "Hey, if we express interest in going Open Source, Microsoft will give us tons of shit for free we'd otherwise have to pay millions of dollars for!"

This would be entertaining at least.

Media Center

[Fascist Christ]

Windows XP Media Center == TiVo on steroids

Seriously, this is nothing new. It is also not a "Personal Computer." I wonder how M$ will handle the copyright issues with recording TV programs, or even if they will allow you to edit out the commercials.

All in all, they are just taking a "PC" and further limiting its usage. No thanks, I think I'll pass on that one.

Cold War All Over Again!

[cryptor3]

An Interesting Parallel to the Cold War:

You'll remember that the superpower US government tried to bribe all those Latin American countries away from Communism (O.S./free software) during the Cold War. There's no proof that they were particularly successful, but they did lead those countries right into the hands of military dictators like Noriega and his army (Bill Gates and lawyers)

Maybe this time communism will win.

Re:saw it coming

[jsac]

[H]ere's 1,000 CD copies of MS Foobar Pro, each worth $5,000 !! So we just made a donation of $5,000,000 and it's tax deductible (not that we pay taxes)

Open Source can beat this, using the same bullshit accounting. Just donate 1,000 CD copies of Mandrake Peruvian Gold Edition -- market price, whatever you want it to be.

Here in Peru

[Kz]

First: I'm peruvian, programmer by trade, mostly on Mac systems. And on the last few years i've integrated a lot of Linux servers on my recommendations.

A big point in the presidential campain of the current president was a 'modernizing the schools' project. In practice that only means get a big donation of PCs on the schools and some software to run on it. Ah, also make sure there's a phone line somewhere to get online (yes, mostly with POTS modems)

So, it's not surprising that M$ wants to be the one providing the software. Get the kids tinking windows==pc==computer, and internet==IE

not only that, but the local IT industry will have to be 'compatible' with whatever is everywhere, so that's who will pay: any company that wants to do anything with this will have to have M$ systems.

It was absolutely improbable to get the Free Software law approved. Nobody (I mean NOBODY) in the goverment would try to get rid of existing software. It just won't work. The first time they get a .doc file, they'll boot windows and forget about freedom, virus threats, spycode, etc.

what would be possible (but still difficult) and much more important would be to require all documents in an open format. the Villanueva proposal mentions that, but briefly.

I can't imagine a government-paid sysadmin saying to M$ (or any big software company) "I want your software but only if it's Open Source". But I can imagine saying "I want your software but only if it uses open format documents".

And M$ could reply "no problem, use RTF" and hope they'll forget and use .doc (so that we would be still locked)