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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.
Hugo Chavez thought he had a tenacious enemy when he crossed Big Oil (tm) :-)
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
When you're rich, the time and sacrifices needed for philosophy are cheap. When you're poor, the practical rules the roost.
Pithy comments aside, this only reinforces what I have come to believe in recent months: that the eventual dominance of Linux/open source is an economic inevitability.
The reasoning behind this is very simple, and has nothing to do with blind zealotry. Capitalism does not tolerate inefficiency. If you can do something better than your competitors, or if you can do the same thing but cheaper, you will have an advantage and the natural selection of the free market will elevate you above the rest.
Linux is more efficient in economic terms. Right now of course, it's "efficiency" is being held back by the number of rough edges that need polishing, the huge resources needed to overcome Microsoft lockin and so on. However, these are becoming less and less all the time. Eventually (like within a few years) Linux will be as good as Windows, as well as compatible with it thanks to the efforts of the wine/samba/OpenOffice/NTFS crews. At that point, you can be better and cheaper at the same time by using it. The result? Market dominance.
It has another advantage as well - multiple vendors. History shows that economics favours systems with multiple vendors: witness Macs vs PCs, or VHS vs Betamax.
Could this be the beginning of the end (of domination) for microsoft? First Peru, then the UK looking at OS solutions, now Venezuala (Did I see something somewhere about an American state going the same way?). The largest avalanches start with but one snowflake...
These could be examples for others to look to when deciding policy. The more that say no to Microsoft, the more likely that others will also say no.
The only worry I have is what the response from Microsoft will be...how much money will they throw at Venezuala to persuade them to change their minds?
demon
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Nothing is ever a total loss; it can always serve as a bad example.
A GNU GPL law may be interesting, but if introduced it should be a part of a much larger package, defining a new set of rules regulating the protection of computer programs, hence removing them from traditional copyright protection. See my article on lagom copyright, published by Newsforge.
Just changing the public procurement like this may prove to be fatal to cost and efficiency. I think proprietary code and open code should compete on the same terms. The license is not the only thing defining the efficiency of a certain solution. If openness is a valid demand from a democracy point of view, openness should be introduced in copyright law to make everyone on the market work on the same terms. I do not find it feasible from an efficiency point of view to mandate only one type of license in public procurement.
See also my article on open code in public procurement published by Newsforge.
Regards,
Mikael
Pawlo.com
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.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Big account, small account. It doesn't matter. Microsoft cannot have any country pass one of these laws and have it work. Fear of change is what keeps these governments coming back to Microsoft. Having a working example with real numbers on cost savings will devastate this argument.
Their fear is a good old 50's style domino effect. First Venezuela, then Costa Rica, then Mexico. Pretty soon, Peru ignore's Bill's gift horse and converts as well. Before you know it, all of Latin America will be running Linux. I don't think this will happen, but I bet Microsoft thinks it could.
Microsoft cannot allow Venezuela to do this. If any country switches to Open Source, and it is a success, Microsoft is in deep shit. Other countries would follow the lead, and soon Microsoft would be forced to implement huge price cuts just to have any chance at all.
If this is a success in Venezuela, I believe that in the near future the US Govt will be one of the very few running any version of Windows. Billy and Steve will throw however much money it takes at Washington to keep things that way.
But can they buy off the whole world?
Don't throw your computer out the window, throw the Windows out of your computer!
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.
Life isn't like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapenos. What you do today, might burn your ass tomorrow.
I am a network engineer who by way of circumstance am a Colombian citizen. Grandfather was from Spain and my father was born there. I was born in the US, but have both citizenships.
I lived in Colombia for the past two years before coming home. And Colombia and Venezuela are both full of computets. All kinds. Though SCO is a pretty popular OS over there. Many old school cobol accounting apps running on it.
ANYWAY. I do not think MS is too worried about losing Venezuela. When you go to a computer store in either country they give you windows free with the pc. Not a licnesed copy. They give you the cost of the liscense, you can get windows with a liscense or without. Who the fuck is gonna choose to pay more money? Not Latin Americans. They gotta pinch pennies. And if they got the money they will not do it anyway.
If you buy that liscsense, you better call MS from the store and verify it is valid, cause it is probably hoked up anyway.
I installed several large networks and ordered Dell PC's for the warranties and I could be sure I was getting the licenses legally. And I did. All windows and my big Red Hat Server.
You think Chavez would actually pay Gates? With latins get the money up front. You think if Chavez used pirate software, gates could do something about it? NO. Venezuela is an entity for itself.
This might look like a win for us but is just clever spin from our community.
Venezuela could care less about its systems. What you got is some good sysadmins whispering free in Politicians ears, makes the Politicians look good, like they were paying for software anyway.
In those countries software, music piracy is an accepted norm. You can buy burned cd's in shopping centers on the streets. They will chip your playstation while you wait. This announcement will not garner any interest there. People are too worried about food and shelter.
And yeah there are nice areas. For the privileged few. The top 5 percent. Yeah I two ISDN lines in my apartment. And the montly cost would have fed a family of five.
Show me where opensource benefits latin america. Medical records, state agencies, but until then this announcement has all the weight of Pam Anderson announcing her new fashion line.
Puto
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised