Venezuela Goes Open Source

Odinson sent in this news blurb from LinuxToday, reporting that Venezuela has adopted a policy for the use of Open Source software in government wherever possible. Apparently they have practical rather than philosophical motivations: keeping cash in the country and promoting local software development.

Comments

Re:Why GPL only?

[JanneM]

I believe Mozilla is dual-licenced; you can use it under the GPL if you want. As for the BSD license, all you need to do is take ythe code, relicense it as GPL and use.

/Janne

Not really surprising

[FreeUser]

It is surprising that this decision seems to exclude other free licenses such as the BSD. Does this mean that they wont use things like Mozilla (isnt it the NPL?) and FreeBSD? What did they find objectionable about the other licenses?

First, you are I think confusing two separate issues.

1) Open Source software will be used by government wherever possible. This definition includes a superset of free software, and especially includes FreeBSD, Mozilla, the NPL, and other licenses in addition to the GPL.

2) Software developed for the government must be GPLed. Their reasoning is probably something along the lines that public moneys, funding public projects (like government-written, or government funded software) shouldn't be appropriated for personal gain, especially by foreign monopolies that will embrace, extend, and ultimately seek to destroy a competing product.

Not an unreasonable stance for them to take, actually.

The article isn't entirely clear, but from my reading it appears that the government will use free software and open source software wherever possible (of whatever licenses they deem appropriate), proprietary software where they must, but any software developed for the government (presumably by contract, perhaps at times even by government personnel) will be GPLed, with its freedom and accessiblity to the public thereby protected for the duration of the copyright. A damn fine idea IMHO.

Ha ha ha ha!!

[Anonymous Coward]

You actually know where did you go? FYI, Bogota is the capital city of Colombia, a totally different country...hello?
Besides, all this crap about ancient computers and obsolete software only shows a lame ignorance about south american nations...it's like saying Linux only runs on pcs 'cos I've never seen it running on sparcs or mips.

Re:GPL

[bigjocker]

The idea is that all the new developments must be released under the GPL. That stops the "Kerberos disease". Nobody can "embrace and extend" the software developed for the government.

Re:Microsoft in Peru

[cguerra]

In Peru the policy for open source was dropped dued to failures in open source as MANDATORY and to microsoft's lobbies

Re:GPL

[Micah]

LGPL software can be relicensed under the GPL at any time. No problem.

Naysayers : STFU

[small_dick]

Two arguments against keep getting posted:

1) Venezuela doesn't matter. Only a few computers; the people know little about technology.

2) It's wrong for government to mandate software, it should be freedom of choice.

First, I have to say I'm stunned that anyone would post such nonsense.

One, Venezuela has some very, very intellectual and highly intelligent people. They are in no way "backwards" or "technically illiterate". Are theere peasants in Venezuela? Of course. There are also illiterates in the USA, get over it.

Two, government mandating software is wrong? Are you peope living in the USA? Have you ever HEARD of the USA? The government and military of the USA mandate Microsoft products almost across the board. Nearly any company you could get a job at has strict policies to use Microsoft solutions only. The largest, most powerful government in the world is mandating Microsoft products nearly universally, in both the private and public sectors, and has dragged it's heels on solving the problem through legal means for God knows how many years. So, don't yap when a single country chooses freedom. As an American, it's sickening for me to hear that argument. It's nonsense.

STFU.