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South African Gov't Declared An Open Source Zone
fungai writes "The Business Day reports that the South African government has decided to adopt open source software and develop support programs with local research institutes and universities. The CIO of the State IT Agency says: 'The logic for open-source is so compelling that after a year of debates we decided to stop talking and declare government an open-source zone.'"
The South African government has a CIO ? Next thing they'll be offering stock options and buying aeron chairs.
However, Microsoft's response was the kicker.
"It's a very popular technology today, but ultimately it's not a sustainable business model. What happens when the developers who find it exciting today move on to something which will pay the bills?"
I almost fell off my chair laughing. It's interesting seeing them confuse state operations and business...Maybe they've been suckling (sp?) on the US government a bit too hard?
"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."
"The logic for open-source is so compelling that after a year of debates we decided to stop talking and declare government an open-source zone"
You have to love it when governments take a "why not" approach to innovation. It's something a lot of USA busineses (and government entities) could take a lesson from.
Well, that's an easy one: the high school and college kids who were watching the developers will take their places. Duh.
(Note: this isn't a flame or a troll, just the obersvations of a South African living in the US)
It appears that, in general, South Africa has leapt way ahead of the US in a large number of policy areas, not just Open Source. They've got fundamental protections in their constitutions which are significantly stronger than those in the US (for example, you can't discriminate based on percieved sexuality, domestic partnerships are law, with same sex marriages in the works, etc.) Now, to be fair, I haven't been back in SA since the '94 elections, so I don't know how much of the new government's legislation has made it into actual practice, but it does seem odd that SA is apparently overtaking the US in terms of the general "cluefulness" of the administration.
I am very pleased at the news that open source software will be used in SA, but it's certainly not amazing. What's incredible is that more governments haven't switched to open source. There is excellent software out there being given away for free, but people are still using inferior software and paying money for it. It only stands to reason that eventually all smart governments will adopt the 'don't pay for what we could get for free' policy. The Microsoft reaction seemed entirely panic-driven(giving software to schools), and their argument is weak. They are right about one thing though, open source software in itself(i.e. just the software) isn't a sustainable business model. Of course that's completely irrelevant. What's relevant is that the software continues to advance in leaps and bounds, is free and is showing no signs of stopping. Let the open source companies worry about business models, I'm only concerned with my free software that I'm free to change however I like.
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Microsoft is still trying to figure out web services and .NET. The first version of .NET has a lot of improvements over IIS 3 and 4, but it still isn't enterprise class. For small and medium business with minimal needs, it's fine. For serious enterprise apps, it's still has a long way to go.
If microsoft can't get windows and .NET up to enterprise class in 5 years, they can forget about it happening. I know first hand many large financial corps are moving towards clustered/grid approach to next generation platform, so there's only a small window for microsoft to break in. If they delay be 2 years or more, linux will become the defacto clustering platform for PC hardware.
(1) Open-source isn't a "sustainable business model?" So, according to Microsoft, forcing annual upgrades and software subscription on businesses IS a sustainable business model? In the now-infamous Peru letter, didn't Microsoft state that sales make up only a small portion of the overall software cost -- support, integration, and customization make up a far larger percent. That sounds like a sustainable business model to me. Being a US school district that received an audit threat letter from their marketing department, we sure aren't impressed with Microsoft's business model anymore. That's why we switched to StarOffice on 1000 PCs last fall (grand total cost, $25.00)
(2) What happens when "the developers
(3) What happens when "the developers
The Microsoft FUD machine is really revving up
especially considering the high costs of HIV/AIDS treatments, anything this government can do to same money in sensible ways is a much, much bigger plus than merely its effect of the open source community, or /. world. People are dying at incredible rates because of a lack of education (costs money) and treatment (costs money).
Excellent idea.
The average African does not make the same amount of money as the average American.
So when you say stuff about people in Africa somehow getting rich off of windows programs, you would be right if this were happening in 1995-99, but its 2003, theres no longer a shortage of programmers, the supply of programmers are endless and the supply of software is limited, at least in africa where the people cannot afford the software.
Their best solution is to develop their own software using their own labor, and then they can build the technology they need to export to the USA and thats how they can REALLY make money.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Africa needs an economy. They have more than enough workers, what they need is infastructure, they need an OS, they need plenty of software which they can develop on their own considering they have unlimited people power,
Its almost like China or India, yes they can make money making Windows software but they would make ALOT more money if they didnt have to pay for licenses, this would allow them to advance in the information age faster because even with a poor economy they'd be able to compete with and even surpass us in terms of software development and engineering.
Robotics, AI, and alot of computer devices they create could be exported giving them a similar economy to that of Japan. Japan currently sells playstation 2 and electronics devices which require alot of programming, Africa has the ability to have an economy like this easily.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
The Navy/Marine corp is presently going in the opposite direction. They are launching a large scale contract (NMCI) that restricts all Navy IT to MS and MS solutions. No room for further innovations with other platforms or the application of appropiate technology to the task, just a rosey pink homogeneous MS world. Under the new system you are not even allowed to connect a BSD, Linux, embedded network device or even a MAC machine to the network anywhere.
At the Navy labs, this one size fits all approach is even more short sighted and foolish. The upper echelon has yet to catch on that the network is the backbone or the infrastructure that enables an ever increasing plethora of monitoring systems, data acquisition and control systems, collabration and communication mechanisms, etc. As more and more devices become Web enabled the Navy has effectively locked itself out in the cold and crawled in bed with built in obsolesce - not to mentioned left itself vulnerable to an attack or virus that would spead like wild fire in a homogeneous network.
I am from nigeria and I have a huge fortune in source code (100,000,000 lines of source) locked up in the South African government. A friend at the embassy has made me aware of your trustworthiness... and should you help export this sourcecode from my dictator government, then I will give you 25% of the sourcecode. I will keep 60% of the source code and the other 15% will go towards the fees of transfering it out of my country and into an american repository.
I need to move fast, since I have only days to export this sourcecode out of my contry before the dictator finds out.
Keeping
I feel it's nonsense to declare any governemnt department or private institution an 'open source' zone, if the implication is that only open source solutions will be considered.
What happens when they need functionality that the open source world doesn't offer. I'm thinking of things like the scalability and availability features you get from the big Unix guys (and no, sticking 100 Dells together is not always the answer for big systems). What about when something like SAP, Oracle Apps, Siebel, etc, etc is required?
Support issues and costs are not instantly solved just because you can look at the source code. That is utterly irrelevant to most IT managers. The last thing govt IT workers I know want to be told is that they no longer need that support contract - they can just look at the code man'. That simply doesn't hack it in a large number of situations. If it does work, then use it, but it shouldn't be the sole policy.
No IT solution should be dismissed out of hand, whether closed or open.
Is this move by South Africa, People's Rep. China, et al. really a big win for the Open Source movement, or is it just governments taking free stuff?
Maybe I'm being a cynic and/or misunderstanding, but I'm not expecting some of these governments to actually contribute anything back to OSS. I half expect some of them to end up violating any licensing the code is released under.
Your hybrid is not saving the environment. Its purpose is to make you feel good about buying something.
"Speaking from a publicity standpoint, South Africa seems to have little credibility in the world these days."
:o/
Unlike... say... The United States of America!
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
HanzoSan claimed that the existence of a billion Africans meant that they had an unlimited base of programmers. I responded that there are other factors that exclude many people from being even potential programmers.
Any conclusion involving Americans exists only in your mind, not in my argument.
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This story at kde.dot.org tells about an effort to translate KDE into all seven official languages in South Africa. No way any commercial program (like windows) is going to go through that effort.
But open source software allows you to do it yourself. KDE is a nice one in that regard because they have good tools for translations and a good process for dealing with it. Before a big release is made, there's plenty of time for the translators to do their job. There is a "string freeze" to allow every translation to get completed.
(Other big projects probably 've got something similar, KDE is just an example where I know it worked).
So: You want the functionality badly? You pay for it (with time or money) and there is nothing to stop you from getting it! Nice, that open source software.
Reinout
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How many vitamin A integrators will your government buy for the price of a M$ license? How many abused safe-homes can be financed for the price of a department upgrade to the latest & greatest WinXP? How many extra rural computer terminals can be deployed for the same investment and at what usaqe rate can they hit if they come in all the possible languages (people, the less educated especially, don't get the feeling they're being 'colonized' but rather treat the novelty as an 'extension' of their own culture)?
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I have lived in South Africa for almost all my life and four years ago, got out of there and have moved to Sydney, Australia (like most who can, do!). The primary reason for this was the amount of corruption going on, largely due to the shocking government in South Africa (it's disheartening to say this, but SA is going like the rest of Africa).
The RSA Government has obviously recognised OSS software as a means to reduce costs which is excellent news for them, and good for the OSS community, but it won't be sustainable for very long. Professionals are leaving RSA in droves and whilst it's cheap for the government to hire such people to manage Linux systems, corners will be cut everywhere and the South African government's greed will simply make the project fail (OSS software is good, but often requires a little more expertise to implement than other solutions which is ok in almost all circumstances).
In the end, the corrupt government will screw things up so bad that they can't even afford to maintain even OSS systems.
As a South African business & games software retailer, I can tell you Microsoft is one of the few companies in the country who refuse to adjust their software prices based on the country they are dealing with. For example the Age of Mythology retails on average here at R 545 (exchange rate R8.80 = $1.00) Whereas a company such as Electronic Arts average PC Games retails for R 299 or even lower in SA. Taking Microsoft pricing policy forward to their business software and licenses, one can see they are horribly overpricing themselves in a country who can ill afford their high prices.
Now start adding up the cost per server. CALs, terminal services licences, Window 2K Advanced Server, etc all add up.
What bothers SA is that they buy licenses of software, but yet not one company develops software in SA. Using Open Source they are giving the chances to future generations of developers. In other words they are becoming self reliant.
Lets put it in their context. Would you not do the same? Would you not want to have your people be part of the digital revolution? Buying software does not make you part of that revolution.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
So the people who managed the deployment were free? How about the user training? How about the lost productivity time as end users got used to the new app? How about the conversion problems on the few especially complex documents star office struggles with?
It's been said before, and here it is again... free software is only free if your time is.
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Just look at IE. It's been almost two years since IE 6 came out, and that was just a minor upgrade over 5.0 and 5.5. When Netscape ruled the browser kingdom, IE was progressing at a rapid pace. Now if Mozilla, Safari, Opera, etc, make serious dents in market share, watch IE development take off again...
Competition is a wonderful thing.
South Africa's government is not just choosing this as a "disadvantaged" nation - they actually have some major industry down there and the government is quite well funded (diamonds, gold mining, etc.) Having lived there for a couple years, I found it is far less third world than you would think - there are definitely impoverished areas, but there are also a lot of very educated well off people backing this decision.
That said, this does not surprise me that they would do this. The So. Africans viewed the American computer industry quite negatively - all of our companies (IBM, et al) pulled out due to the apartheid situation (which is ironic as they were the companies hiring diversity - a topic for another day) and left them in the lurch. Some have probably returned now, but those negative feelings toward "Western" companies remain. So it does not surprise me at all they would go open source.