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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.
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Terry Gilliam must be happy.
In Soviet Russia, beowulf clusters imagine YOU!
Making this mandatory, in my opinion, goes against everything that open source stands for - choice. To not keep choices as free as possible to choose whatever is the best solution - be it proprietary or open - defeats the entire purpose of the choice open source provides.
The 'best tool' term can always be used to fit whatever system you're trying to push. If you're talking about desktop systems, there's always a reason that Windows is the best tool.
If, on the other hand, you are interested in making a change and making people aware of the choice out there, then yes it probably needs to be mandated - what the Government is saying is that it is more important that we have control over our software than features, necessarily. That's 'best tool', but more of a long-term view..
"Elmo knows where you live!" - The Simpsons
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.
What, are you new around here or something?
Brazil's not exactly overflowing with cash at the moment. A tool that does 90% of the job for free is better than a tool that does 100% of the job but that you can't afford to purchase.
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.
[i]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.[/i]
I don't think so. I think the main thing here is that stuff needs to be cheap (Brazil's a poor country), and has to be able to do the job - not necessaraly in the best way possible. FS is definetly free money-wise, and because techs can get the source too, any specific needs Brazil might have can cheaply be added. Also, don't forget, the sooner the mass of the people use open source, the sooner those open source apps will become the "best for the job", as people start contributing.
Oh yes, with Brazil's *new* president/goverment, it wouldn't suprise me if there's an ideological bit involved, too, which, I think, is good.
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.
I think an 80% mandation (is that even a word?) seems fair. You leave 20% left over for missions-critical applications (military and whatnot; remember, Brazil isn't like the US - they don't spend hundreds of billions on military, and therefore, I doubt their military computer systems make up even 10% of their infrastructure), on which you can chose software based on the best choice out there. But the remaining 80%, which represents mostly desktop applications for clerks and whatnot, will be running on OSS - this is good, because it prevents government from getting locked into restrictive licencing that usually comes with desktop production software, saves money, and encurages development of open software/standards.
I think they've met a good balance here, and I congradulate them.
--
http://nemilar.net - Not your grandmother's soup kitchen
Brazil has been renamed "Torvaldia"
In Soviet Russia, beowulf clusters imagine YOU!
Is mandating across the board reductions in cash expenditures for non-domestic product unfair or counter-productive? Almost certainly not. When a second/third world economy is able to reduce its hard currency outlay for soft product, it's an across the board win. When it's further possible to use local labor for support and administration, at local labor rates, it's a larger win. When all of that can be achieved *and* they're able to use the initiative as a basis for improving the technical skills pool locally, it sure seems like a win to me.
It'll be interesting to see if they can leverage access to source and freely redistributable product into a long term cost reduction strategy. Short term the win is pretty clear. Long term, open source has some way to go in maintenance cost reduction, vis. Solaris vs. RedHat and Solaris vs. Win2k
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.
This is just as wrong as if a country mandated 80% Microsoft. Mandate open file formats and protocols, but don't mandate people or agencies MUST use a specific type of software.
--
Who do YOU think owns UNIX?
Freedom Is Universal
Linux-Universe
It brings skills into the country and stops the export of programming jobs. It ensures that the organisatons you want to account are local. It means that all of your population can take advantage of gov't programming and development work. It reduces dependancies on countries which may or may not change their mind about you in the future. It means you aren't bound to proprietary standards (docs and APIs) which might be used to keep you on that platform. It means that the code can never be taken away from you.
Given that a countries primary mandate is social, it makes a great deal of sense to mandate free software, for the good of the country, unless you happen to be the country that is the home of Microsoft (and even then that's debatable - MS is perfectly happy to outsource programming jobs to wherever is cheapest).
Beep beep.
The best tool for a particular job might be proprietary software. However, maybe Brazil's long term goal is to alleviate themselves of proprietary software.
Certainly any software tool could be created using open source. After a few years of such creation all the best tools would be open source and Brazil will no longer be reliant any anyone but themselves. Sounds like a pretty good goal to me.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Implied :-) for those who forgot about 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.
'Chamber for the Implementation of Software Libre.'" Libre = Spanish Livre = Portuguese Portuguese, not spanish, is the spoken language in Brazil...
Free versus the two hundred some odd dollars for windows could save them a lot.
Now if I could just land an open source development job in Rio and hang out with some of those topless Brazilians.
~ now you know
...is a tool that guarantees you it can still be used in 20 years. Only Open Source Software can assure you that. The manufacturers of Closed Source Software will eventually stop support, go backrupt or be bought by a large company that just kills it. There is absolutely no excuse to use closed source software. And "It's easier to use on the short term" is NOT an excuse if you cannot be 100% certain that your data will still be readable in 10 years.
0x or or snor perron?!
I dont recall ever hearing some consensus that Open Source stands for choice.
Free Software stands for SHARING SOURCE CODE. In fact, going by the GPL, you dont even get a choice about sharing it either.
So stop promulgating that stupid sentiment. I for one have no problem with mandatory open source.
So what if you lose the choice to be a slave, you still have all the choices that matter.
Are they really doing any mandating? I RTFA and it seems like they're only making the move to free software only because it's cheaper, not because they have to or anybody is forcing them to.
It only seems like they are mandating it because of the story title, even in the babelfish translation of the spanish original article title they're only 'migrating.'
I was wondering why they'd try to force open source software on anybody, isn't that against morals and such?
In this case I see some likeness to the case of Generic Drugs. Brazil forced lower prices of patented drugs by threatening with ignoring those patents and producing cheap, generic medecines.
They won because a state is still more powerful than any corporation. Imagine what would happen if SCO won the case against Linux, while Brazil would have most of the governmental IT run by Linux. Would the surrender to the power of SCO? I doubt it. So every such case is beneficial to the stability of Open Source community
You can defy gravity... for a short time
but is making it mandatory going too far?
In the transition to a fully open source office, the initial training expense is high (not because Windows is easier, but because everyone already knows how to use it). After the initial expense, and assuming a large installed base (to facilitate peer support), the cost savings are enormous. Government offices are the perfect places to take advantage of these facts - no quarterly stockholder reports to worry about means the initial expense won't affect anyone's bonus, and the massive user base makes peer support extremely cost effective.
Wholly aside from the cost efficiency aspect is the open government and independence issue. As things stand, Brazil is dependent on Microsoft, and runs on software to which Brazil's citizens have no access. This is hardly an appropriate position for democracy to find itself in.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
mandating open software over closed is a financial and logical extension of the notion that government should be more cost effective, accessible to all comers, more equitable and be able to accomplish it's tasks. What this does is to put a huge incentive on other software companies to compete on terms of usability and service, instead of locked in closed formats and inertia, ie, holding them ransom for money every year beyond what is really necessary to spend, which is the model most governments and busineses have been using for a long time, but times change now. Cost is a serious consideration, and open source has enough variety to do the bulk of what needs to be done, and shows every indication of soon doing *all* of it.. If-obvious reference- microsoft wants to still compete, the ball is in their court now, there's several avenues they can persue, either drop prices to a much more realistic level and open up their document formats in particular, or go full bore open source same as linux and bsd vendors,make their profit from service and reliability and security, and also the same thing applies to various specific applications they might require.
The "right tool for the job" is the correct assessment, but you must needs take all the variables into account when considering your selection. Example, I can dig out a small gadren spot to make a new flower bed, I could lease a trackhoe, by golly that thing is very efficient in digging out the bed, and it's sure a tool, but all things considered the better tool would be me, the garden sysadmin and my shovel I own and don't have to rent.
I don't think the brazilians are stupid, they can see the advantages in cost, long term viability, having the freedom to develop custom in house, having the notion that more of their people will have lawful access to the same tools for more universal access, and so on.
Put it another way, it would sure be bogus if to use the highway here I had to only drive a belchfire, and government wouldn't use anything but belchfires, and they were real expensive all the time with expensive parts and expensive maintenance. That's been almost completely "mandated" so far, time to move on to another idea.
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
One thing that really bugs me about many governments around the world is how they are never willing to touch the fundamental issue behind free vs. proprietary software. Copyright is a government-granted exclusive right to a work. If this government-granted right is hurting the society, the society should reconsider the principles behind the copyright.
I find it insane that the Brazilian government first grants each author with strong rights for the software they write and then they say that sorry, we can't use such software because you use the rights we have given you. I also find it insane that the US government grants software authors similar rights and when one company simply uses those government-granted rights (well, I guess you know what company I'm talking about), the government sues it for abusing those rights.
Making open source mandatory is pointless. The proper way to change things is not to grant anyone privileges that hurt the society. The copyright, to some extent, might be a good thing. If it becomes such a bad thing that the government itself wishes to use only copyleft software, there is something fundamentally flawed either in the government decision or the copyright law.
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...
I think the real winner is the Brazilian citizens. Although the government is certainly not about to buy trhem a bunch of computers, thisis a big step towards spreading technological skills throughout the region, into schools, and into people's homes. Let's not forget that a society that cannot stay in tune with technology is doomed to be at a serious disadvantage on a global scale.
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
Wow. Get off the phone with the Microsoft rep. What mainstream category of software doesn't have an OpenSource counterpart. I say mainstream because I don't think the government of Brazil is going to be the next Pixar. They don't need some super-specialized software! OpenOffice or MS Office --damn what's the best tool for the job. Let's see they do the same damn thing. I should buy MS Office though, because it is the "best tool for the job." I'm sure the people of Brazil are glad you're not in charge cowboy. I'm not trolling here, just leave your unsupported flamebait comment out of the post; it has taken over the discussion here.
More importantly, they will be saving money. There's no way around that for them. They'll also feel less pressured by a company that's interest are far from theirs--the one's that are selling the "best tool for the job" crap like there's no alternative that wouldn't work just as well.
Ah well, just my two cents worth. They're using the BEST tool, they just stopped asking MS what the BEST(tm) tool is.
That money may very well stay local... building a local technology industry instead of outsourcing.
Unfortunately, the market isn't that "free" either. With powerful trans-national corporations being the only "real" players in the so-called "free market", it would be next to impossible for the Brazilian government to open up the competition.
Freedom != Market Deregulation
The Taiwanese government recently became the latest one to advocate the development and adoption of open source software. The main reason? Cost, of course. The government plans to save nearly US$300 million that it otherwise would have paid in royalty fees to software giant Microsoft. In addition to promoting open source, Taiwanese legislators have expressed dissatisfaction with the U.S. government's lack of action against Microsoft's illegal monopoly. They also have launched an investigation to find out whether the Taiwanese government needs to take its own actions against the company. \ This excerpt is from another article, and I think it states some good reasons for why a national government would make this decision. Check out http://www.osopinion.com/perl/printer/18157/
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:
...Shame on you, Linux media.
Brazil is NOT moving its computers to Open Source, and we are not even close to having a law or even a government decision about mandatory Open Source Software.
This article is based on a translation from a translation and contains a lot os misleading and untruthful information.
BTW, it would cost us billions to make a mass-move to *any* other software system, why we would do that in the middle of a BIG recession (4% decrease in industrial production)?
By mandating open-source/free software the government of Brazil has started down a path which provides a rich environment for opportunity--domestic and internationally. If the tools which are freely available cannot fully do the job, at least they have the source for those tools and a domestic labour force capable of picking up the slack and putting together solutions based on a working model. That domestic force also has ties to international sources of talent and software (community).
They can even hire abroad or take solutions from abroad as long as these solutions can be audited. That's just one of the things that makes this decision great. Think about this, why does a government like the United States pay lip service to M$ and permit them to go unpunished for monopolistic practices? Because it's in the interest of USGOV to see the majority of the world's domestic, business, and government networks running software which is easily crackable (easy to break at the TCP/IP stack-namespace and overflow/crack apps and kernels). Want a clue? Go check the Openbsd.org site's front page.
Now we have a government that can spend that money on hardening it's networks and liberating itself from long-term information retrival issues because some corporate clowns own their ass on document protocols. The USGOV also feels threatened when they have to view another government as a competitior (any government that can safeguard its information is no longer their bitch). Face it, we live in a world where secrets are like bombs. The more you don't share, the more chilly relations become. Imagine the NSA having actually create another specialized team to snoop Brazillian networks because they can't use the typical toolz which work almost everwhere else? The next thing you know, the State Department is sending icy messages, making 3am flights, sending mouthpieces with nasty little messages for face-to-face snarl and purr sessions, and dropping notes off at the IMF.
But even though these things will happen (and have probably been happening to some degree already) behind the scenes, this decision at a governmental level will have only as many teeth as is required to make the people in charge happy. Until we hear independent voices in the Open-source/Free software community talking at length about the trials and tribulations and the victories made towards freeing Brazil of closed-source/Lock-in solutions in government programs we should probably relax. Government is a lumbering beast, it can take a long time to turn it in any direction no matter what decision has been made, no matter what the desired outcome is.
Maybe what this topic needs is a good illumination of what happened with Mexico...anyone packing Free-software/open-source stories about Mexico?
Every new form of media has it's own Requirimento
This actually means that my government is investing in a job for me! I will have a chance to help with customizing, translating, or even developing the software that the government is going to use. This is great, as a brazilian free software developer I have to say that we couldn't have donne better. Now we can create more jobs for our people instead of giving away thousands of dollars in license fees to overseas companies!!!
This is a compromise more likely to make it into law, and serves the intended purpose. This prevents vendor lock in of your data, and applies to databases as well as the desktop. (A much bigger concern for governments)
.rtf and other formats, but you have to jump through hoops to do it. They would presumably then be severely penalized in the contract bidding. This would push them to i) publicly document their file formats, ii) switch to an open file format by default, or iii) lose out on the bid.
It also kills off undocumented file formats such as the MS-Word defaults. In order to win the contract, closed source vendors such as MS would have to switch to a default open file format that any application could read. Of course, Word can save files in
My rights don't need management.
OSS is like most social revolutions. It is for anything which broadens its agenda and power base. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
From a historical perspective, this news on Brazil is quite interesting. They have had one of the most meddlesome governments in IT. I was working with several Brazilians in the 80s. At the time, Brazil wanted to build up its computer manufacturing and had strict import laws controlling the importation of computers and computer programs. The hope was that by creating an isolated market, they would develop a flourishing IT industry. My friends, of course, thought the laws were extremely troublesome and oppressive, and were trying to find a way out of Brazil. They told stories of how most of Brazil's IT infrastructure was running on 10 year old software because companies couldn't import the new software. I was hoping the acticle would have more info on the history of Brazil's attempts to legislate its IT industry.
Anyway, mandating the use of OSS fits well within the social and political objectives of the movement. OSS does not stand for "choice." OSS stands for "open development." These are different ideas. In many regards OSS is in stark opposition to the notion of ownership of property. All the brouhaha about copyrights and patents is an attempt to create some sort of ownership to intellectual development; so that it would fit in a free market.
When the code is publicly developed, there is no longer any "ownership" of ideas or code. It is all a communal resource. Hence, the philosophies of ownership that were advanced by Smith, Locke and others are no longer applicable.
As for choice, for OSS to really excel it cannot allow companies to choose that this piece of software is open and this piece is closed. The goal of the GPL is to make all the software code "open." Otherwise the greed of software developers would be to take from the community without giving back. Government mandates simply add the power to the state to enforce the idea of open development.
OSS pretty much started as a reaction to the Microsoft monopoly. Since monopolies limit choice, I can see how people in the initial step of the revolution equated open with free; However, I suspect that it will be anti-US and nationalistic attitudes of countries like Brazil that will bring the OSS revolution to fruition. The fact that the revolution is different then what people thought the revolution was about is par for the course.
Hey, if the FSF re-brands free software as Freedom Software for the US market, it might gain acceptance among certain government circles!
Michel
Fedora Project Contribut
Playing devil's advocate, it might be fairly easy to make a case for mandatory free software in government. My argument for that would be that government, as a public entity, has special non-technical requirements. It's sufficiently important to insure that a) you know what's in that software, b) you can continue operating and accessing data for time periods literally an order of magnitude or more greater than the average software generation these days regardless of whether any single software vendor exists or supports the products you use, and c) your citizens aren't required to buy specific commercial products just to access government data and services, that those requirements trump any technical superiority of a proprietary solution.
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
I'm surprised at the number of people who think the government of Brazil is going too far to mandate that government computers use open source. Brazil making this mandate is just like the CIO of some company making the mandate to use open source, or MS Windows. If Brazil was passing a law that forced all it's citizens to use open source, that would definately be going to far. Right now, it sounds like they've made the choice internally to use certain software systems, and htose software systems are open source, yay!
The open source community shouldn't second guess themselves when they score a win.
Does Brazilian political culture have a tradition of bribery-induced corruption?
Sadly, yes. And a lot. Right now politicians are trying to cover an investigation of more then US$ 30 Billion (that's right, THIRTY BILLION DOLLARS) from a bank. It's going downhill because it's said that some big names from our administration are involved (up to ministers, perhaps even the president).
But generally, the current dominant party (PT) fights against corruption. Its members are passionate against, for historical and ideological reasons. It's something that deeply matters to them. So, even if there are cases where some scandals are trying to be ignored, generally, I belive it's harder to corrupt a PT memeber than from other parties.
Buy a Nintendo DS Lite
When Company A decides to change from Windows to Linux, or from Photoshop to OpenPaint (ok, I'm making that up) nobody start to cry.
The decision does not apply to private-owned companies, nor to any specific-used software. Nobody will drop Oracle because they MUST use mySQL. You can't simply change tools like that.
The point is: 95% of every government-related office work is plain office stuff. Answer mails, type letters, fill forms... It can be done as easily with a Linux / *Office as with a Windows/MsOffice solution.
The living-hell I work right now is going to pay $20.000 in Windows/Office licenses. I tried and tried to show to my manager that a OpenSource solution IS much cheaper, but he doesn't want to bother with the tech support issues. He's not blind, he's a PHP Biatch, a rather good Linux/BSD geek, but your know what they say about power...
After all, how many people use 10% of MS Word's features?
[]'s Carlos Cardoso - Becoming a brazilian ProBlogger, typo by typo
The project that gave birth to the Software Livre Brasil was Software Livre RS, at http://www.softwarelivre.org , and announced in the end of the IV FISL (Miguel de Icaza was there :) ).
This is a great thing; it's our money that was used to buy proprietary software; now it will be used to invest in our knowledge.
And to all guys who are saying this isn't a good thing: f*ck you! You are all envious! HAHAHA!
Sorry replying to myself but I had formatting problems.
As someone who is a software engineer for the Brazillian government in São Paulo, I feel compelled to reply.
Open source is widely used and discussed as an option in almost every reguard. Yet virtually all server-based apps are run on solaris. In most cases you can choose to run linux on the desktop - some even choose bsd. Eclipse is fastly becomming universal. Yet virtually all development is being done in Java - pretty open for a closed standard but not exactly open source. Simple decrees will be hard to change that culture.
Still, the media I've read is not showing direct quotes from high level officials. The IT minister is quoted as speaking in the name of (chief of staff) ministro José Dirceu, and even that President Lula has stated software livre is "polÃtica pÃblica de governo". Pretty loftly claims from a lower level official - hope they are true but still as yet are unconfiremed in higher places recently.
It is my belief that the increasing amount of developers believing software livre is kool will have more impact than any law. I don't believe that software livre is really going to save much money as claimed because of wide piracy. Saying Public governments should use publicly available tools makes more sense to me. But seeing those numbers explains how the Secretaria de Fazenda do Rio (Rio IRS) created those swiss bank accounts.
iksrazal
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.
You are mistaken. Try it sometime. Copy all files from a bootable partition to another bootable partition. You will find that some files did not copy. That's why Norton Ghost and PowerQuest DriveImage boot to DOS.
"However, I suspect that it will be anti-US and nationalistic attitudes of countries like Brazil that will bring the OSS revolution to fruition."
ItÂs not an anti-US action, it is all about trying to have the most affordable solution. Brazil is a poor country and we are currently cutting costs everywere. ItÂs better doing this by saving money with M$ licenses than saving money with education and health care.
Brazil is also a large country with population about 180,000,000 distributed over an area 8,511,965 sq km (which is more than US, if you donÂt consider Alaska). I donÂt have many estimates about how many computers our government has, or how many M$ licenses per year are acquired, but I hope it will save us mony and improve our IT knowledge and skills.
We are not India, but we are ready for that. After all IT local costs are low. I have a MSc and BSc degree in CS on a top brazilian university and my salary is less than U$ 15,000 per year. And I am currently unemployed, I think if our government invests in local techonology it will help our country as a whole.
People have been forced to use MS software for years. In order to really fix Open Source software, people will probably need to be forced to use it so that its issues are actually dealt with. I get the feeling that no-one who really writes is using OpenOffice (or whatever) to write, and no-one who really produces graphics is using GIMP. Until someone forces serious users to use these products they won't be fixed.
Most developing nations don't have English as their national language, so a lot of the "benefits" of doing things the Microsoft way are less apparent to begin with. (E.g. many of the rows and rows of Microsoft-product-related-books in your local Barnes & Nobel that folks buy when they can't figure out how to make their Excel spreadsheet work aren't translated into Portugese or Vietnamese.)
Microsoft and PC makers do a lot of dumping in the third world. E.g. in Viet Nam -- a country I have some experience with -- discontinued brand-name PCs are dumped on the market which serves the dual purpose of prepping the country for a full-priced MS invasion when it can afford it and getting rid of stock that would cut into margins in first world markets. Indeed, it's interesting that so much is made of piracy in such countries, since most of the PCs you see look like they would have come with bundled software.
It seems to me that many developing nations are not short of technical expertise, and developing local additions to a large Open Source base would be a good way of avoiding IT slavery, building up the national skill set, providing good localised software, and in general taking advantage of globalisation instead of being victimised by it.
I can read Spanish and English. I have read both the English translation and the original article and I couldn't find anything stating that the move to OSS is "mandatory". Both articles don't mention any law that dictates the choise.
What I read is that the Brazilian goverment have chosen to migrate around 80% of its machines to Linux as a way to save some money. As a by-product, they seem to believe that this move may encourage private companies to do the same and that it may foster local software development. The reasons seem fair to me. It seems that the pros and cons have already been considered and a decision was made.
Moreover the article points out that the change will be slowly and carefuly made. They will first evaluate a pilot project. Hence the decision may still change based on the output. Such way of doing things does not combine with the word "madatory" from the slashdot article.
You are not able to communicate to other business people.
That is not what I said. 95% of the documents I get from Windows boxes open fine. In the other 5% people have no objection to storing the file in an alternative format. I communicate with them just fine.
My problem with Windows (which is also shared by a lot of governments) is the proprietary file format may not be accessable at some time in the future. To me that makes Windows unacceptable for business use where the lifetime of a corporation may exceed 100 years.
In the course of my business career I have had need to access 50 year old documents related to critical employee health issues related to workspace chemical exposure. If people were using proprietary storage methods 50 years ago I would not have access to this information. That would have had a negative impact on issues like medical treatment.
And Yes, MacOSX and Windows CAN.
If you think Mac OS X is seamless with Windows, you are incorrect.
but not just any old printer out there works with linux.
That may be important to a hobbyist rummaging through a junk bin, but not to a business environment where there is always an approved hardware list.
KDE & GNOME crash as much if not more than Windows 95. I'm sorry.
Now I know you are out of touch with reality.
and lack of good SOLID multi-processor support.
Even if I agreed with you, which I don't, how is multiprocessor support relevent the the desktop business user? You are grasping at straws.
If you ever want to get into some of the latest applications, you spend HOURS updating libraries which seem to have endless dependancy trees.
Theoretically that is possible. However these days very few applications are distributed in a manner that would require this. In the context of the business user, the fact is that a roll-out of a new application would be handled using a pre-built package.
I am sorry, but you are out of it. The fact of life is that major organizations are starting to realize that there are some very important issues to being tied to a single vendor using using proprietary data storage formats, and that there is a way out.
The mandate for open-source is not religious... is economical!
The Brazilian government decision was very simple: OSS is cheaper than MS (90% or more from the computers in Brazil use a MS OS). The government needs is cutting costs from all areas to have more money to spend in social programs. The external debt from Brazil is enormous, it must be paid but people here need some assistance due a fantastic desintegration of all social areas in the last 20 years (social including education, health, habitation, infra-structure, eletricity generation, you name it...)
An added bonus: the largest MS supplier is TBA, a MS representant from Brasilia (Brazil's capital).
TBA is the largest MS distributor in Brazil, due a very curious clause among MS resellers in Brazil: TBA was the only distributor authorized to sell MS products to Brazil's government due to territorial restriction clauses that gave TBA a virtual monopoly to sell MS products to the government.
That clause was imposed by Microsoft itself to the others MS LARs (Large Account Resellers).
MS and TBA were sued by the Secretaria de Direito EconÃmico (a department of Brazil's Ministry of Justice) and were fined due to abusive prices, inclusion of services in the software price's, artificially high prices for government sellings.
With a problem like that, a strong lobby from MS to push it's products among schools, the "donation"programs were the software is given "for free" but an annual renovation license is needed and a financial problem to solve the mandate seems a logic way to go, since nobody wants to change to OSS due financial advantages for some involved parts.
The reason's aren't the same from Villanueva and I don't know why I thought it.
The problem is economical. And the Brazilian governemnt already have a troubled history with Microsoft. Until last year the only authorized dealer by MS to deal with the B government was TBA (a MS reseller from Brasilia - Brazil's capital). Due to territorial restrictions imposed by Microsoft TBA had a virtual monopoly to sell to the government, with higher prices than the general market in the software and services. TBA and MS were sued and fine by illegal and abusive commercial tactics. TBA lost it's "monopoly".
With a "partner" like MS/TBA is natural that the government wants to broadens it's software options.
OSS and Free Software had enough qualities to justify it's uses. They don't need "strong commitment". It's software, not religion.
It is terribly short-sighted to allow the use of
closed-source solutions in cases where a
reasonable development investment can create an
open-source tool. The open-source tool will
continue to develop in response to the particular
needs of the agency, and serve other agencies
in the future at no additional cost, while the
proprietary solution will only cost more money
as it is used increasingly.
In short, the open-source solution costs less and
less per installation over time, whereas the
proprietary one often costs more and more.
The 80% number leaves abundant wiggle-room for
those rare cases where the development investment
or latency of producing a novel open source
solution where none exists, but a proprietary one
is feasible. That number should be gradually
pushed upwards, over time, however, so that the
long-term economies of open-source solutions can
be more thoroughly exploited for the public
benefit.
Public funds should be used in the public interest,
not to enrich a foreign monopolist.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
Nowhere does the Spanish article or its English translation state that the government of Brazil has made open source mandatory. It states that the government of Brazil chose free software because they believe it to be more trustworthy and reliable. It also says that they are conducting a pilot project within one ministry and that the project will be completed over a period of three years. When I did the quick translation and sent it to PCLinuxonline, I did so because the cited Spanish news source appeared to be the first organization reporting on it widely and because I thought it deserved further analysis and scrutiny. I believe Mr. Stanco created a strawman, maybe unintentionally, and that both Linux Today and now Slashdot fell for that strawman by restating that Brazil is indeed mandating open source. By arguing against something that the article never claimed, Mr. Stanco only leaves to wonder whether he actually even read the short summary or the other articles available in the Brazilian media. Making a choice about what software makes it easier for Brazil's government to respect the constitutional rights of its citizens to privacy and transparency of data seems like a perfectly legitimate choice to me. The fact that they will realize significant savings as a result also seems sensible for a nation facing severe economic problems. Ps: One note to all the Brazilians noting that the word in Portuguese is livre and used "software libre". This is not a mistake in my part. The words software libre are widely used and well known in English. I know many English speakers who prefer the terms software libre to the English "free software" because the former make it patently clear that we are talking about freedom not cost. It is in light of this usage that I felt and feel that the terms "software libre" are appropriate. People immediately understand the "libre" as in "liberty" where as the free as in speech not beer often gets you puzzled looks. Good day.
Pragmatism as an ideology is not particularly pragmatic in the long term. Keep it in mind when you dismiss Free Software