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?

[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.

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.