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Brazil Mandates Shift to Free Software
truthsearch writes "LinuxToday is reporting news and a response about Brazil making Open Source mandatory for 80% of all computers in state institutions and businesses, setting up a 'Chamber for the Implementation of Software Libre.'" This is a big win for Linux, but is making it mandatory going too far? It would seem wiser to support a solution that favors the best tool for the job, which may not always be an open source product.
This is a big win even for Windows based software, such as OpenOffice and other desktop OSS software. And what about OSS server based software? That too.
If closed-source software is prohibited, there's no way for companies to buy their way into Brazil.
"It would seem wiser to support a solution that favors the best tool for the job"
That's very true, but only when you don't have mega-corporations and monopolies leveraging assets other than software (donating computer hardware, donating to social programs, etc).
While I personally believe in "the best tool for the job", governments are far more vulnerable to outside pressure than businesses.
Just a reminder of what just happened in Munich, Germany: while trying to convince public administration to choose Windows, Microsoft dramatically reduced its prices. So, if you're a big company or a public entity, the sole announcement that you consider the Linux alternative can save you a couple of million dollars. Not considering OSS alternatives will cost you or your taxpayers millions of dollars.
That's why competition is so good.
Notice A Trend?
... Pocket PC interface ... Tablet PCs). Current activities will give provide needed funds to Linux development and also provide an impetus to MS to get its act together. Good news all round.
Ballmer Does!
MS is going through what happened to IBM years ago. "No-one ever got sacked for buying IBM". Decision makers like to run with MS (whether for desktop, development, whatever) because if things go wrong, they at least can't be accused of using "weird" stuff like Linux.
But when others start having the courage to adopt Linux, it becomes less of an excuse. Indeed, if other governments are successful with Linux, decision makers who play conservative will even have to justify why they chose Microsoft when there are other viable alternatives.
If years of gluttony have eroded product and service quality, as IBM discovered, a monopolistic empire can quickly crumble.
This is good for software all round. I am pleased to see Linux getting some action in conservative quarters. I am also pleased that Microsoft will be forced to innovate. Flame if you must, but I think they have always been very good in responding to challenges. Yes, some of that had involved questionable tactics. But they have also made some top innovations over the years, or at least commercialised cutting edge research and ideas which were formerly obscure (e.g. Windows 95 interface - Start Menu, Taskbar etc
We should mandate free software for government not because "it's the best widget for the woozle problem," but because it's _public_.
The government shouldn't be subsidizing some _private_ interest if there is a public alternative.
I think this is a very smart, but somewhat risky move. 80% is a lot of computers for a lot of people. I sure hope that this will not cause major chaos as these kind of overhauls do tend to cause. Government institutions can be notoriously bad at implenting new technology (although exceptions appear of course). I am not sure how Brazil is doing at the moment, but I hope this move will not interfere with what is already a weak economic situation.
What Brazil may hope to achieve is jumpstarting a good developer community and user base by this action and jump the gun on other countries in the world giving them a competitive advantage in the future. I wish them all the best...
Yes, in an ideal world, everyone has choice.
We should all realize, though, that often the power to choose is wasteful, and unnecessary. What do I mean?
Do you know how much time, effort, and money gets wasted having some government committee trying to decide what software to use for something? How many factors are involved? And we're talking latin america here, don't forget bribes.
The choice to use free software is not the same as the "choice" to use Windows. Free software encompasses a whole range of things; somteimes, an edict like this is what it TAKES To change things.
Canada switched to the metric system in a very short time. How? It was forced on everyone. Once you accept it, it's EASY. Yet we still have people in the US with silly studies saying how it would take 100 years for the US to switch, the logistics, yadda yadda. Guess what, if it was actually decreed that you HAD to switch, you would find a way, it wouldn't be anywhere near as disruptive as everyone says, and so on.
The same happened with the switch to the Euro.. tons of people had studies and reports shownig how switching was going to be a HUGE disaster, how it wouldn't work. Guess what, it went rather well.
Given what government does, I'm sure they can fit whatever applications absolutely cannot be replaced by free alternatives in the 20% non-free they are allowed.
What I'm saying is, in practice, sometimes removing choice is the ONLY way to force a real shift in how things are done. I mean, people have had a choice all along, and the pressures involved caused them to chose proprietary things.
...when the right tool for the job can't be found then it will be sought by this gov't. That is excellent news, as it builds the open source pool of software, and pays (hopefully local brazilian) open source software writers for their effort.
KS
It is not in the interest of most countries to grant strong copyright monopolies, since most countries are heavy importers of copyrighted products. It is not that long ago that the US was in the same situation, and refused to recognize non-US copyrights. Lord of the Rings used to be published in the US with no permission from Tolkien. These days, countries do not get much of a choice in the matter.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
On the other hand, all features in the world is no substitute for having control over the software you use for the vittal functions of your country.
In my country (.SE), for the sake of democrasy, government functions, documents and decissions are, when not specifically mandated by national security, required to be available to the public for review.
The same should hold true for the software functions used in the government, if they affect the descissions or the order in which they are made, and must in all cases hold true for the fileformats used.
Everything else would not be democratic.
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
I know it's nitpicking, but I would take issue with this comment. Of course Brazil doesn't spend "hundreds of billions" on military - they don't HAVE hundreds of billions to spend (or the capability to generate that income by issuing bonds and expanding their debt). However, Brazil has in the very recent past actually spent more on their military than, for example, Israel.
This is the only chart I could find on short notice, and despite Brazil's figure being taken from 2001 while others were taken from 2002 they still managed to come in right behind South Korea (where there is a far more immediate military concern) and ahead of Israel (wow) in military spending.
Again, I know it doesn't approach US spending but the military is still quite clearly a significant drain on their budget...
Robert Oppenheimer was a strong believer in universal access to knowledge as it is the only thing that prevents our humanity from being lost in a vast flood of specialized and closed technology:
And Paulo Freire, one of the 20th century's most influential educators, born in Brazil, held prisoner in Brazil, exiled from Brazil, would have loved to see this moment. Finally a way for so many more Brazilians to act on their own behalf.
People You Should Know : Freire
One need only compare Freire's "the teacher" and Microsoft to understand the level of oppression that occurs in closed source monopoly price software environments:
Do you know anything about statistics?? This is your statistic shows the gross amount used on military while you should compare on a per capita basis.
General: budget / population = military spending per capita
US: $399.1e9 / 2.8e8 = $1425
Brazil: 10.5e9 / 1.8e8 = $58
(Israel: 9.4e9 / 6e6 = $1566)
Now thats what we call perspective.
Population numbers are gathered from the cia world factbook avaiable at http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/
Look a monkey!
all the "Open-this" and "Open-that" software being tossed about in the early-to-mid-90's that really had nothing open about it at all.
The "Open" implied an open standard, meaning that even though the source wasn't necessarily available, the spec was, so that anyone could write an app that interoperated with your product. Thus OpenVMS was simply VMS with POSIX compliance- developers could expect it to behave in certain ways. I guess this was largely to reduce fragmentation among OSes.
In contrast, Windows is not open in any sense of the word, because much of the behavior simply isn't documented at all outside of Microsoft, making interoperability a pain in the ass. One could compare NFS, which is well documented and has implementations on every Unix and Windows, to CIFS/SMB, which everyone else has to reverse engineer. If Microsoft were to show us just the spec, without any source code, that would be enough to make something truly compatible. Hence, "open" without "open-source".
>>So what if you lose the choice to be a slave, you >>still have all the choices that matter.
>What the fuck does that have to do with software licenses?
Everything.
Patent's, Copyright, et. al. are tools of mental slavery. Noone can create in a cultural vacuum. Taking things out of the public domain is, to borrow their term, "stealing" from society.
All ideas are derivative ideas. Once we realize this, then we realize that copyrights and patents are immoral, and a detriment to progress in art and science.
I've been involved in a few cool projects, and the base are usually shelf systems. High-end Alpha Stations, Digital Servers, Unix/NT SOs, Oracle Databases, you name it.
It's easier to mantain, contract services are cheaper, and development is cheaper too.
The specialized tools, otherwise, are developed in-house or by form of external contracts, but even that way plain win32 environments are best suited for the job. A C++ programmer costs a lot more than a GOOD Delphi coder. We can save money and hire the C++ guy to do the critical stuff AND the Delphi guys to do the easy stuff.
[]'s Carlos Cardoso - Becoming a brazilian ProBlogger, typo by typo
"That company" was never granted the right to abuse a monopoly. Nor were they exactly 'granted' the right to such extreme legal IP protection as they now enjoy, they bought it through campaign donations, years of intensive lobbying, and who knows what else behind closed doors.
This is really the same question. If a dictatorship (an unelected body backed up by, say, international law) controls software which is more efficient than current 'democratic' software, should we use the more efficient software?
Of course, you need to look at the broader issues. Dictatorships have a low life expectancy - the people at the top become more and more corrupt, siphon off more and more money until the whole thing collapses. The people being dictated to lose their ability to think and act constructively, so when the collapse comes anarchy results. Soviet Union, now Iraq. In the same way, countries without an indigenous software industry risk are exposed to the fallout as the suppliers fight among themselves somewhere else in the world. Brazil must be worried about what will happen to the likes of Sun, and the future trend in Microsoft licensing and compatibility. But they cannot control it.
Now, because of the WTO, I suspect that Brazil cannot enforce local sourcing: that would be contrary to internationalisation rules. But they can support OSS, because that is a level playing field around the world.
So my answer to the question about mandating (even though it does not seem to be any such thing) would be that governments have a right to have policies. If the best tool for the job is not currently OSS, someone can try to provide it. That's no different from any other bespoke government software project. The contractor has to agree to some kind of OSS licence. That's just a contract term. If, say, Microsoft wants to bid to build a large government system, they can do so provided they agree to the contract terms. If they choose not to tender, that is their decision.
Many Third World countries have very young populations. Most of their workforce have never been exposed to computers. The argument that installed base prevents migration is not valid as it may be in mature economies. I have long believed that Linux will have its fastest percentage penetration in the Third World, even is this is not the largest in terms of units for some time. Perhaps I'm right.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
Or, 5 year old unsupported software for that matter.
I have some excellent 5 year old unsupported software. For instance, I use Micrografx Picture Publisher with my scanner to do image editing of all my digital photography. I'm not a 'professional' and it doubtless doen't offer all the features available to someone who has a supported-current edition of Photoshop, but it certainly does a fine job. The Micrografx software came in a 'Suite' with Micrografx Designer, which is a fine vector-based drawing program. Very adequate for drawing up plans for woodworking projects and also supports scaleable fonts for light-duty desktop publishing projects and layouts. I'm using this software for my home-based business and it's doing a fine job. And it's about five years old and never really was supported (Micrografx software used to be well-supported, but by the time I got this particular graphics 'Suite' box set it was an inexpensive $40 box set at CompUSA.) Unsupported software can do a lot of productive work. It's ridiculous that some exagerate the notion that 'because it's proprietary software, it falls off a cliff shortly after the company quits supporting it.' This software runs fine on W2K and since I don't forsee ever buying another Windows OS it'll do well. If hell breaks out and I'm mandated to go to Windows 2013 because of some horribly compelling new feature, this stuff will set on a seperate machine here on the LAN.
So there's a lot of economic value in 5 year old unsupported software. It's highly likely there will still be economic value in it when it's 95 years old.
Except, of course, the Buck Rodgers space cadets amongst us will probably now claim we'll be breathing air underwater and wearing our underwear on our heads due to some 'miracle' bullshit from nanotech-ding-dong buzzwordland stuff.
Furthermore, the first baker has shown many other expert bakers on similar tours, and they were all impressed. You have no particular reason to trust any of them, but a conspiracy on that scale is quite hard to believe. Also, the tours are open to anyone -- with no check on how much baking the guest knows or how he may be disposed toward the baker.
Now if you add in (special to Brazil's case) that the second baker is a member of a rival clan (USA) which has a history of underhanded dealings (Chile, Nicaragua, Columbia), you might not be willing to eat the second bakers bread after all!
In summary, the fact that you have checked something is best, but the fact that you can check it counts for a lot.
Sig:Why copyright isn't a fundamental human right
"rm, no. You're wrong. Since any government is not one monolithic entity but is in fact made up of multiple agencies, making a decision like this at the top level effectively takes away choice from the individual agencies."
:(
I think government should work as any corporation an standardize on something that cut costs that are ultimatelly subsided by us (brazilian taxpayers). The idea to standardize on free software, is a win-win solution. If we let individuals choose, they would prefer to use M$ office instead of OpenOffice just because theyÂre lazy and donÂt want any change.
But to move all apps to free software wonÂt be as easy as change clerical workers desktop computers.
I know that some agencies like Federal Revenue and Customs and Social Securuty have very large and complex systems that depend on M$ and that can not be changed without hurdle. If the government really intends it will need to change the mindset of many agencies and despite of all technical persons goodwill, it would be a daughting task.
HereÂs a link to brazilian e-governement projects.
Google translation
Brazil is a large poor country and should uses all itÂs resources in favor of people who needs education, a good health care system and much more. Buyng M$ licenses is a luxury we canÂt afford..
So there's a lot of economic value in 5 year old unsupported software. It's highly likely there will still be economic value in it when it's 95 years old.
You are right, there will be someone to whom it is cheaper to emulate a 95 year old machine than to reverse engineer the file format and creating new software. If it ain't broke... But in the context of copyright when I say "economic value" I mean "economic value to the copyright holders."
In 5 years they are unlikely to be making money from this version of the product, either there is a maintenance contract and the product is patched and no longer the same program or the application has been orphaned. In 95 years they are unlikely to have any special advantage or interest in patching the software over competitors.
I think many software packages will be in use 95 years after their creation, and hence valuable, but as we saw with the Y2K patching few of the packages had a known copyright holder (bankrupcy & death + no percieved value to transfer.) Even when the copyright holder was known, the source (or flow diagrams for that stuff coded in machine language) was long ago lost. These programs would be more valuable if you could legally send a copy to your consultant instead of having him patch live code, with no real loss to the entity that gets a 95 year copyright or life + 75 years on binaries today.
Joking aside this is super dangerous for the community... the clock is now ticking, Brazil has 3 years to migrate 80% of it's desktops to Linux while proving a reduction in overall national IT spending, or you have an embarrassed government on your hands who will turn back to MSFT or A.N.Other commercial company for help. Somebody, somewhere has to start looking at how the skills appear on the ground in Brazil to do this. It's not going to be IBM that help the community here in the long run, the government will never show a cost reduction through that route.
I disagree. As we all should know, rights come with responsibilities. MS didn't abuse their copyright, what they did was (allegedly) break corporations law. This has nothing to do with copyright; they maintained comercial in confidence, not copyright, over Windows source code. This is something else.
--MjecNo-one has accused MS of breaking copyright law or abusing their copyrights, at least, not within a court of law.
The decision to use open-source software is good because it can save the government money. Consider running a departmental webserver. You can set up IIS on Win2k3 for US$1,099. That's the 10-client version; each extra client costs US$169. And those are amazon prices. Whereas you can download (don't worry, I'm sure all governments have this ability) *nix and Apache+mod_whatever-you-want for free. Doesn't come with 8kg of manuals, sure, but you can either (1) buy them or (2) check the internet. The cost saving is enormous, and by some OSS is conidered to present better products.
Sorry for rambling a bit, but simply on cost-analysis grounds (as has been mentioned in another comment) OSS is better for governments.
(so I can't spell, sue me)
"But everyone should know everything." -markab