The Economist on Open Source in Government

locarecords.com writes "The Economist has an excellent article about Microsoft attempting to undermine the Open Source and Free Software movements. Particularly interesting are the issues relating to proprietary software and government and how other countries are mandating free software in government software projects."

Comments

Open the document formats

[Lips]

I don't mind if govt uses open source or not. The best product for the situation should be used. What I do want do see is "open" document formats to allow them to switch software providers easily.

Re:Open the document formats

[koa]

Actually, they did try to mung up the HTML standard. But not very sucessfully. Ever see "This page best viewed with MS IE v4.5 or better" ??

They incorporated all sorts of browser specific code that only works on IE in the hopes that they could curtail the HTML standard into their own bastardised version of it.

Thanks to Mozilla, Opera, Konqueror we didnt completely go down that road.

Re:Open the document formats

[stwrtpj]

What I do want do see is "open" document formats to allow them to switch software providers easily.

In another post, I stated that I did not want to see a mandate of open source software, but a mandate that I could live with and see the benefits of would be exactly this, a mandate that document standards (and, I would add, communications standards) be open.

Unlike the mandate of open source, a mandate of open standards would not be open to the risk of a legally enforced monopoly. Quite the contrary, it would make it much more difficult for a monopoly to be established. Anyone could implement the standard, whether proprietary or open source. Then the consumer could be left with a clear choice. With no vendor lock-in, the playing field would be truly level.

Mainstream Gets It

[hbo]

To have this analysis show up in The Economist rather than Slashdot or LWN, etc, is a bad omen for Microsoft.

It's just as easy to lie as to tell the truth. What's hard is keeping the lie standing long enough to fool your target. The truth takes less energy to maintain.

Re:Mainstream Gets It

[hbo]

Well, the idea that OSS can compete with Microsoft is relatively new in the mainstream. But what I was referring to was the analysis of why a government entity might consider OSS to be superior to proprietary. Those are ideas that have some weight attached to them. specifically:

• Massive peer review makes OSS more secure than comparable closed source products
• Proprietary document formats raise issues when government information is stored using them.
• When a government IT infrastructure is completely dependent on a (possibly foreign) corporation whose (proper) concern is shareholder value, it raises questions about the ability of the government to persue (properly) different goals using that infrastructure.
• 
  
  
  I've seen these issues well reported in the nerd community, but this is the first time I've read it in The Economist. Their circulation, shall we say, differs substantially from the user list at Slashdot. I think the ideas carry even more weight with decision makers in government and elsewhere when a mainstream publication like the Economist publishes them. And that, I think, is bad news for Microsoft.

Re:Notice this Zealots

[aussersterne]

there are many areas where proprietary products are still far superior

Yes, but considering the progress of OSS over the last decade, given time and continued success this will soon no longer be the case. It is only a matter of time before OSS dominates in 90% of market niches.

That's what Microsoft is afraid of: the democratization of computing. Everyone must have access to the law; that is what the corrupt fear. In the same way, everyone must have access to software and information; that is what the software companies and IP cartels fear.

Closed format

[timelady]

It was interesting that the various governments are interested in alternatives, in large part, because of the storage of information in proprietory format. This would only be enhanced by the latest proposed MSOffice document format being incompatible with even previous versions. But the best bit, imho is that the article metnions three groups/professions to benefit most from the move to Open Source: " large consultancy firms and systems integrators, such as IBM, which will be called in to devise and install alternative products; firms such as Red Hat or SuSE, which sell Linux-based products and services; and numerous small, local technology firms that can tailor open-source products for governmental users.numerous small, local technology firms that can tailor open-source products for governmental users". Hmm, don't critics of Open Source always say no way to make money from such a 'socialist/communist/root of all evil/hippy' model? And gee, helping small businesses, especially IT based ones, expand, profit, and employ more people, is HIGH on all government wish lists. Great to see an intelligent analysis in a respected magazine, too.

Microsoft still doesn't get it

[FunWithHeadlines]

Microsoft doesn't get it. They can put as much money as they want into their internal "slush" fund in order to match Linux on price. They can fund as many studies as they want that "find" Windows is cheaper. It won't matter. Choosing FOSS is not just about money. In fact, it's mostly NOT about money. It's about a principle: freedom.

Governments want the freedom to set their own technology course, not be dependent upon a proprietary software company that is beholden first of all to its shareholders. Governments want the security of knowing precisely what their machines are running on, by checking the code themselves. Governments want the abililty to set their own upgrade schedule, not wait until a company tells them the new version is ready. Governments want the ability to squash bugs immediately, not just when a company decides that bug is worth fixing instead of just adding new features.

Microsoft is so focused on winning the bottom line that they don't seem to have caught on to the biggest appeal of FOSS: Not free as in cost, but free as in speech. It's a principle that individuals find appealing, and now governments are finding that this freedom works for them as well. So no matter what Microsoft does, they can never compete on those terms. It's a principle now. Game over.

Re:Microsoft still doesn't get it

[FunWithHeadlines]

" No, YOU don't get it. You obviously don't run a business. Principles like "free as in freedom" don't come into play when you're talking about the bottom line. That's a very, very naive viewpoint."

Do tell. In fact, you have no idea what I do for a living, and your assumptions are laughable from where I am sitting. In fact, "free as in freedom" is directly applicable to the bottom line when you can control the destiny of the software your business depends on. While Microsoft tells you where you are going today, those who control their own software get to make that business decision themselves.

And THAT is what helps you pay your bills.

Re:Microsoft still doesn't get it

[hbo]

I don't think underestimating Microsoft is advisable. I think they do get the true nauture of OSS and the threat it poses to their businesses. They are trying to answer as many of those threats as they can. Linux threatens Microsoft on many fronts. One is price, and not just on the initial purchase. So they have a fund that can be used to ensure they lose no deals to Linux based on price. But as the Economist points out, Munich took Microsoft's "cheaper than Linux" offer and told them to keep it. There are other areas where they are having a hard time responding to the Linux threat. They can't match the massive peer review advantage of OSS without becoming a completely different company. But they can partially answer the advantage of open source code. Thus, their "shared source" program was born. Along with this goes FUD claiming that the peer review advantage of OSS is actually a weakness because bad guys can look at the source too. This probably plays well for them, but since it isn't true, it will only be useful for a while. Similarly, Microsoft spreads FUD about intellectual property in Linux. And in the same way, once the SCO suit is dealt with, they won't be able to use that angle either.

So judging by their responses, I'd say Microsoft "gets it" completely. They are perhaps the most clever, and ruthless, practicioners of marketing the world has ever seen. Underestimate them at your peril!

Re:Microsoft still doesn't get it

[swillden]

No, YOU don't get it. You obviously don't run a business. Principles like "free as in freedom" don't come into play when you're talking about the bottom line.

You're offtopic. We're talking about government, not business, and government does have priorities beyond the "bottom line" (which governments don't even *have*, since the phrase refers to net earnings, and governments aren't profit-generating entities).

Continuing your off-topic direction, I also disagree that businesses find no value in avoiding lock-in, and the freedom to find a new "vendor" at any moment is a direct effect of the "free as in freedom" principle, even if CIOs won't typically recognize the connection. Some other salutary effects of freedom on the bottom line are freedom from BSA audits, elimination of the overhead of managing licenses and the ability to get critical defects corrected on your schedule, not the supplier's.

Bass-ackwards thinking

[Xenothaulus]

"Jason Matusow, Microsoft's shared-source manager, says that developing software requires leadership and an understanding of customer needs--both areas where proprietary-software companies excel."

An understanding of customer needs.

Exactly why governments are gravitating towards open-source, according to the article. They can tailour the code to suit their needs, instead of expressing thier needs to a company and then waiting for the product.

This article isn't really insightful, more...

[pr0ntab]

of a head's up to anyone who hasn't read the headlines on Slashdot, CNet, or google for the last 18 months or so.

I think what's more telling is that it is sitting there in the Economist. Now you just have to wait for it to show up in Business Week as an editorial piece, and then It Must Be True, at least to managerial types of various calibers.

The Economist has this characterization of being for people who have their finger on the pulse of things; who are levelheaded and are already in the know, so it may sort of be preaching to the choir. It's pretty spin free, so that awkward quote from the Microsoft rep "being customer-focused" sort of stands out, and I think that was intentional.

Microsoft doesn't customer-focus unless you're entering a partnership agreement with them. Otherwise your wants and needs are averaged out across the board and shipped in a Service Pack. Meanwhile the article puts that quote agaisnt the backdrop of how open-source is being chosen precisely because it's easy to tailor for what you need.

And you don't have to be a slashdotter to appreciate that irony. It's all right there.

Re:Economy 101:

[Frymaster]

Make sure your market is not undermined by the competition, free or otherwise.

well put. i am tired of hearing that capitalism is based on competition and risk. it isn't. capitalism is based on mitigating risk as much as possible and eliminating the competition if feasible. all capitalist systems tend towards monopolism naturally.

MS in Denial

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the items that often gets ignored in Microsoft's thinking is this: They were a small company with many competitors and Operating Systems were many and varied and had their niche; MS has changed the world by the proliferation of its operating system(s) and made it part of the INFRASTRUCTURE on which society relies. Once you control the infrastructure, you can't behave like MS currently is behaving - or the people and Governments will look for alternatives.

They changed the world, but unfortunately, they can't change themselves and herein lies the biggest of their problems.

The last statement in the article "But the signs are that many of them have already made up their minds." is very telling. Once you have known MS's past behavior, you know why they made up their minds.

Open source anti-competitive? I think not

[Skapare]

Microsoft thinks open source is anti-competitive? That's certainly not the case. There are multiple vendors of Linux, including big players like IBM, Novell, Redhat, SGI, Sun, and SuSE. And there are multitudes of small players. And if Linux isn't the best for you, there are other fully interoperable alternatives such as FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD that are open source, and still more like AIX and Solaris, that are proprietary. Looks like plenty of competition to me.

The problem is Microsoft doesn't want to be in a posititon of having to choose between losing sales or losing a lock on customers. Even if Microsoft were to have been an early adopter of Linux, they would never be able to gain a total market domination in it. And they know this. Microsoft's big fear is having to scale back to what a competitive market really means.

Re:Notice this Zealots

[ekuns]

Programmers by the millions are unemployed because communists are undermining the great American capitalist economy by GIVING their software away. How do you expect to get work as a programmer when some guy next door is giving away the software for free? It's outright piracy and should be banned in the United States.

Wow. So it's Open Source that's causing the extinction of the Great American Programmer? Working at a company which is oursourcing coding to another country on the different side of a large ocean, I don't know that Open Source even registers on the radar as to why people are out of work. Please.

And communist? You completely miss the whole business model of open source. And you seem to be under the impression that open source is something recent, when in fact it is as old as programming, the only difference is that now non-programmers are talking about it. Not to mention that name calling is the last argument of those who have no real argument.

Besides, this "Great American Capitalist economy" is being weakened by a government that not only encourages wage deflation in the tech sector, but is actively participating is the process.

But that's OK. You can blame open source if you just want to be angry and have something to rant about that doesn't require much thought or investigation.

Re:Notice this Zealots

[whereiswaldo]

hmm... I question your 90% number. Proprietary software tends to drive focus where the money is. OSS tends to drive focus where the work is interesting.

Who says development of free software has to be free? Money can potentially be made developing open source software, as long as the source code is then distributed under open source license terms.

Say a government which has mandated OSS needs a certain application written for which there is not existing project. They pay someone to write it, and release it to the open source community. Or, ventures between governments could split the cost and share the results.

MS's "shared source" is flawed.

[mark-t]

Supposedly, one of the major reasons that Microsoft had for initiating their "shared source" system was to alleviate fears that the software may contain backdoors or some such thing.

This reasoning is fatally flawed.

Since the shared source system does not allow any organization which is given access to the source to see the *ENTIRE* codebase, nor does it grant priviledge to modify the codebase (which implies, in turn, that one cannot recompile it for their own system), how can any person outside MS realistically even tell that the source code that Microsoft has provided actually directly corresponds to the operating system running on that particular personal computer?

The answer is that they can't. And frankly, if a company was going to be deceptive enough to put back doors into their software in the first place, you can bet your privates they'd be deceptive enough to lie about what their source code was.

I'm not saying that Microsoft has actually done this, but they are pretending that this "shared source" system makes them look accountable, and it really doesn't.

At least their reasoning for making the CE source available is more plausable.