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

Do you think that MS will fund the next coup?

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Hugo Chavez thought he had a tenacious enemy when he crossed Big Oil (tm) :-)

Only the beginning?

[demon93]

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?

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.

The Domino Theory

[dieMSdie]

This reminds me of the Domino Theory as the USA applied it to SE Asia in the 1960's, as the main excuse to go into Vietnam.

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?

More Clever Spin on slashdot.

[puto]

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