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Japan Takes A Look At Open Source Software
irish_spic writes " Accorting to this AP story (in yahoo news), the public management ministry is setting up a panel of scholars and computer experts, including Microsoft officials in order to study the use of Open Source software in the government. The article cites concerns about costs and security as the reason for the study. Me wonders if they are serious or just trying to get discounts from MS."
Japan finds linux zealots, looks at slashdot. Japan gets scared.
Japan calls Microsoft instead.
The end.
Oops. :)
Me wonders if they are serious or just trying to get discounts from MS.
Does it really matter? The end result is more press, more mindshare and for them to come right out and say that they are concerned about security is just... excellent. Soon the rest of the worlds governments will all be running Linux and the US will become a technological backwater. I guess if I want to stay employed here, I should start working on that law degree.
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.
I think that's the point. The panel would be pretty useless if it was only composed of OSS advocates, as they'd only hear and consider one side of the story. The closed source side needs to be there to give them the pros and cons of closed source, allowing them to make a better decision. That's the theory, anyway.
"People that quote themselves in their signatures bother me" - athakur999
Just some observation I have since I am in Japan and everything.
Microsoft (or BSA, anyhow) seem to be spending a lot (i mean a LOT) more money here on "anti-piracy" campains than in the US.
Trains are usually littered with BSA (piracy is crime) posters, and they have a HUGE (like maybe 40 feet across) sign in front of Shinjuku station (you know, downtown tokyo and all).
At the same time, I havn't seen free-software related stuff at all since I have been here. It might be the language barrier, but ancedotally speaking, I don't think I am seeing the same % of shelf space devoted to linux than in the US.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
My understanding is that BSD is fairly popular in some Japanese companies right now. A college friend of mine was the guy who translated the FreeBSD docs into Japanese. Linux might be a bit too political, but BSD OS's seem to take the conservative, stable approach. --gary
Shhh!
I get all my karma by reposting all the (Score:5) comments on repeat stories.
.sig last updated Jan. 14, 2000
[...] the public management ministry is setting up a panel of scholars and computer experts, including Microsoft officials..."
In other news, the farmer has invited a group of forest critters, including some foxes, to guard his hen-house.
As opposed to the open source advocates being biased? On one hand I agree with you, but on the other I think to myself that if open source feels threatened by or can't compete with Microsoft when playing on a level field with equal opportunities for representation, then I think there's more to worry about here than just Microsoft being present.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
is it just me, or is this one of those really, really american things to say? just that when something goes wrong, it's not "What went wrong and how can we fix it so it doesnt happen again" but "It went wrong, sue the fuckers!" (Insert rant about responisbility, parents, and Columbine here). Why is it that people cant possibly say, "oh, I fucked up, because i didnt read the freely accessible instructions, but instead have to blame someone else? just my $0.02.....
"Good night, good work, sleep well, I'll most likely kill you in the morning." - Dread Pirate Roberts
Microsoft: expensive, slow development for fixes, laughed-at-by-main-stream-media security, closed source - which further stifles development, foreign, you support a monopoly
Linux: cheap or free, rapid and constant development and bug fixes, industry reknowned security, open source, it is "yours" once you embrace it, you support a grass roots movement of heart felt computer users and developers
It doesn't take a genius to figure this one out.
http://www.asahi.com/business/update/1116/005.html For those of you than can read Japanese.
To answer and continue your analogy: Yes, we give the enemy the plans to the castle, but we also give a whole shitload of castle designers and defense experts the plans, and they go over them with a fine-tooth comb and make sure our castle is well designed. While this is more true in the BSD world than the linux world, the same applies top both. Programmers can't build trojans into major software because anyone looking at the source, who has the right experience, will see it and it will be removed. This is the basis on which OS works.
Also note how quickly trojans slipped into major OS software are discovered, usually very quickly (matter of hours?) of the trojaned software being posted. Specifically, compare that to the (lack of [days, weeks, never]) speed with which M$ updates major security holes in thier products.
And, no, I should not have used the goddamn Preview mode first.
Did you notice the finish date for the study? March 2004, yes 2004 not 2003! It is not as if it is a big study - only $410,000.
Governments when faced with something that they don't like often make it go away by commissioning a study, by the time that it comes out the fuss has died down and everyone has forgotten about it. I hope that that is not what is happening here. If that is the case, this is one 'fuss' where events will overtake the report.
Would you rather they simply post an "Ask Slashdot?". Would you want a group considering adopting DRM technologies to only hear speakers advocating DRM, or would you want anti-DRM speakers to be heard as well?
When you study things, you find pros and cons. Is there any better way to see two sides of a story than invite both advocates and opponents of a given issue? If Open Source is indeed superior, it will be shown through discussions from both sides. If the presence of MS representatives is sufficient to show disuade Japan from adopting Open Source, then there are obviously faults that need to be fixed.
You don't study technology by gathering together a bunch of advocates: you study technology by pitting advocates against opponents.
Mooniacs for iOS and Android
Interesting reasoning, and certainly valid. I just wonder what "professional" representation the Open Source community will have on this panel.
I don't see anything wrong with Microsoft telling their side of the story. But the Open Source community doesn't really have that "single front PR department" that MS has. How will the panel hear both sides, if only one side is speaking?
Never attribute to malice what can as easily be the result of incompetence...
I'd say that this is much better than MS being given an opportunity to respond to the report directly to the politicians and in the absense of of those same OS-knowledgeable experts.
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
Committee Meeting, Day 1 6:00pm
OS: If you look to page 3, you'll now see the pie chart showing server breakin percentages. It shows you that running an OS server will mean you have only 10% of the risk of being broken into versus running a MS server product.
MS: You know, it's getting kinda late. It's a tough question which one is better, why don't we discuss it further over dinner and drinks
Committee Meeting, Day 2 9:00am
OS: On page 5 we show a breakdown of virus propagation by operating system. Note how almost all viruses known to man are propagated by MS products.
MS: Excuse me, after that hard night of booze and broads, I thought everyone might be hungry so I arranged to have some breakfast catered to our session. Why don't we pick up again after we eat?
Committee Meeting, Day 3 9:00am
OS: Now on page 9 we can compare the cost savings of using free and open source products over proprietary ones.
MS: Can I interrupt just a second, I've got an announcement to make. It's come to our attention that Japan is routinely devastated by attacks from Godzilla. Because he's a concerned philanthropist, Bill Gates has decided to donate $100million dollars to Japan towards rebuilding efforts in the aftermath of these tragedies.
Committee Meeting, Day 4 9:00am
OS: On pages 18-26, you'll find a list of technical features that were created by open source products. On pages 27-39 you'll see how Microsoft included those features into their own products and then claimed how innovative their products are.
MS: Japan, I see that times are kind of tough right now so I've gone out on a limb and asked Bill if we can get you a deal on our software. We're going to be able to sell you Windows at $100 a license, that's below our cost to make it, but you can have it if you sign a 5 year maintenance agreement. I'd hate for you to miss out on this offer, because otherwise you'll have to pay the higher prices later. By the way, what's the address of your political committee? I want to make sure to contribute to your reelection campaign.
MS: We're happy to report that the Japanese government found our products to be more innovative, secure and cheaper than open source software. This head to head competition was brutal, but we think the better software won out in the end.
Yeah, I'm happy someone's doing it right too.
No. To be OBJECTIVE does NOT mean what you think it means. You cannot have individuals with a known bias on the panel and call it an objective or reasonable "study". It is already known a priori what "conclusion" the M$ rep will have. It would be just as bogus to have Stallman on the panel.
If you want the panel to come to a reasonable conclusion, then its members must be objective, period. An M$ rep is not objective. This panel is not looking for a real answer, it is looking for India-style "gifts" (that cost big in the not-so-long-run) from M$.
If they truly wanted an objective study, they would have brought in analysts who don't actually give a damn one way or another, but will actually run an objective study without having an inkling as to the way it is "supposed" to come out (in favor of M$ in this case because that is the only reason to include such a person).
You CANNOT have an objective look at the scientific evidence supporting the fact of evolution by including creationists. You cannot have an objective study on whether it is cost effective and good policy in general to use OSS with M$ reps on the "objective" panel.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Ya'll do NOT get it. The panel shouldn't contain OSS partisans NOR M$ lackeys. It should contain ONLY individuals capable of running an OBJECTIVE study one way or another. All you get with this nonsense are two opposing sides calling each other names (metaphorically speaking). It is a foregone conclusion that the OSS people will push the great benefits of OSS while the M$ clown will spout how great M$-crap is, blah, blah. No objectivity anywhere to be seen.
An objective panel made up of objective individuals who run a faithful study on total costs, and benefits, top to bottom, money-wise and moral/political/freedom-wise.
Anything else is bullcrap.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
I was thinking that for non-US governments TCO is not as much as an argument as MS would have them believe. If using linux or any other open source solution requires staff to be paid more, then those staff will come from the same country. Therefore this will keep that money in the local economy rather than pouring it into MS coffers. I you were a foreign government would you rather give money to a) your citizens or b) foreign megacorp ?
There is a Japanese study, simply called the Linux white paper 2003, that studies current use of Linux in Japan. If you don't read Japanese, a summary of the material is available in Why OSS/FS? Look at the Numbers! in the market share section. Look for the point that starts with "A Japanese survey found widespread use and support for GNU/Linux; overall use of GNU/Linux jumped from 35.5% in 2001 to 64.3% in 2002 of Japanese corporations, and GNU/Linux was the most popular platform for small projects." Note that this is the percentage of corporations using it at all, not the number of total machines, but it certainly suggests interest by the Japanese corporate world. Various other statistics are quoted as well.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)