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The Economist on Open Source in Government

Posted by michael on from the birds-eye-view dept.

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."

32 of 331 comments (clear)

  1. Economy 101: by Pig+Hogger · · Score: 5, Interesting

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

    1. Re:Economy 101: by Frymaster · · Score: 5, Insightful
      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.

      --

      2 1337 4 u!

    2. Re:Economy 101: by Citizen+of+Earth · · Score: 4, Informative

      Lots of people rag on "captialism" without realizing that what they are complaining about is the shortfallings of our own systems from being capitalistic. Government intervention is necessary to remove corruptions like monopolization from the system. And "we, the people" are needed to remove corruption from the government.

    3. Re:Economy 101: by gmhowell · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Here I am, feeding the troll... Err... Leftwing whiner

      We are not supposed to base analyses of communism on failed models such as the Soviet model. Why then do you think it is any better to base an attack on a semi-failed model of US capitalism? Over the past 200 years, there have been many well-regarded economic analyses that show that only a few markets lead to a single player. Even in those cases, it is unlikely to last except when there is government support. If there is government support (and the US gov't buying tons of, say, MS operating systems IS support) you aren't talking about capitalism. You are talking of a failed attempt at capitalism.

      --
      Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
  2. Interesting by Bame+Flait · · Score: 5, Informative

    Looks like the Department of Defense has actuallygiven the nodto open source - or at least recognized its existence.

  3. Re: Notice this Zealots by Black+Parrot · · Score: 5, Funny


    > > That said, open-source is no panacea, and there are many areas where proprietary products are still far superior.

    > I wish the zealots would at least concede that much before blasting the horrible , horrible, evil, closed, proprietary software.

    OK, consider it conceded. Now can we please get on with the blasting?

    --
    Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
  4. Open the document formats by Lips · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Open the document formats by koa · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      ....move along....nothing to see here....
    2. Re:Open the document formats by stwrtpj · · Score: 4, Insightful
      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.

      --
      Karma: Frotzed (mostly due to the Frobozz Magic Karma Company)
  5. Mainstream Gets It by hbo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --

    "Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there" - Will Rogers

    1. Re:Mainstream Gets It by hbo · · Score: 4, Insightful
      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.
      --

      "Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there" - Will Rogers

  6. Re:Think about the probelms by Agent+Deepshit · · Score: 5, Funny

    Darrell McBride, we know thats you...Quit it.

  7. Re:Notice this Zealots by aussersterne · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    STOP . AMERICA . NOW
  8. Damn, it feels good to be a gangster by MoralHazard · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm torn on whether to be surprised by this--the Economist has run stories before (there was one last issue on the SCO deal) that seem to be subtly, quietly favoring GNU/Linux.

    The part of me that says "I told you so" has been informed by recent experiences with managment/executives in our small business. They LOVE the fact that we run Linux on everything (well, there's a couple of BSD and Windows machines where we need them) and they never hesitate to brag about it to clients. They love feeling ahead of the curve.

    The surprised part of me read the article in the WSJ last month (on the SCO thing) that warned the "Linux crunchies" to be wary of SCO's ability to win scummy IP lawsuits. The article betrayed a complete lack of understanding of what the "Open-Source community" is (to the extent that it's anything at all). And the same execs that love having Slackware stickers on everything need to be reminded during every internal licensing audit that GNU/Linux IS free as in beer, too.

    They love it, but they don't get it. Makes me a little worried, sometimes, where they'll want to take it.

  9. Closed format by timelady · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Nothing - well thats something.
  10. Microsoft still doesn't get it by FunWithHeadlines · · Score: 5, Insightful
    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.

    1. Re:Microsoft still doesn't get it by FunWithHeadlines · · Score: 5, Insightful
      " 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.

    2. Re:Microsoft still doesn't get it by MoralHazard · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Whoa, pally--for some of "us" (as in, people who read slashdot), it's NOT about a principle. At all. It's totally, entirely, wholly about money. And is that bad?

      We use GNU/Linux at work because it works really well for the small-to-medium environment we have. There are a gazillion more choices with Linux than with MS, and it's rare (in my experience, anyway) to find any specific apps at this level where OS can't do it better or equally well.

      Open source software (in our environment, for the tasks we have, and as we use it) installs fast, it's user friendly once you get to know it, and there's no license management, vendor contracts, or other ancillary bullshit to make headaches. It's just so simple, so easy, and it works so well.

      That's about the money, BTW, because time is money. GNU/Linux is a cheaper, better alternative to MS, and that's why we use it.

    3. Re:Microsoft still doesn't get it by hbo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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!

      --

      "Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there" - Will Rogers

    4. Re:Microsoft still doesn't get it by swillden · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  11. Bass-ackwards thinking by Xenothaulus · · Score: 4, Insightful
    "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.

  12. Phew by tarquin_fim_bim · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Politicians in India have called on its vast army of programmers to develop open-source products for the same reasons."

    All you MS developers are safe now. There'll be no outsourcing there any more.

  13. This article isn't really insightful, more... by pr0ntab · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
  14. MS in Denial by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  15. The Unnoticed Contradiction? by sean23007 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Microsoft and its allies have sought to discredit open-source software, likening its challenge of proprietary ownership to communism and suggesting that its openness makes it insecure and therefore vulnerable to terrorism.

    More strikingly, Microsoft has been imitating the ways of the open-source "community". Last year, the firm launched a "shared source" initiative that allows certain approved governments and large corporate clients to gain access to most of the Windows software code, though not to modify it. This is intended, in part, to assuage the fears of foreign governments that Windows might contain secret security backdoors.

    So, they're saying that the openness of the code makes it less secure and vulnerable to terrorism, while at the same time opening their source to prove that it isn't secure... If they willingly admit that open code can be verified as more secure, how can they accuse Open Source software as being inherently less secure because it is open? And how come nobody calls them on that?

    --

    Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
  16. It wasn't Truman by Jeremy+Erwin · · Score: 4, Funny

    "What is good for the country is good for General Motors, and what's good for General Motors is good for the country." -- Former GM President Charles Erwin Wilson, 1952.

    Wilson later became Eisenhower's Secretary of Defense (1953-57). Sometimes a good quotation gets in the way of good history.

  17. Open source anti-competitive? I think not by Skapare · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
  18. Governments Are Wise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's obviously a good thing that governments are mandating the use of OSS. Thus, OSS must be superior. Consider, for example, some technologies that the US government has mandated:

    - Ada over all other programming languages
    - ISO OSI protocols over the TCP/IP suite
    - Interlaced HDTV

    An official government stamp of approval on Linux can only be viewed as evidence that it's the best technical solution available.

  19. Re:Notice this Zealots by ekuns · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  20. Re:Notice this Zealots by whereiswaldo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  21. MS's "shared source" is flawed. by mark-t · · Score: 4, Insightful
    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.

    --
    File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
  22. Databases: established players caught from behind by snolan · · Score: 4, Interesting
    From the article:
    • Oracle, the world's second-largest software company, need not worry (yet) about governments switching to open-source alternatives to its database software.

    I disagree, at least for small databases that are OLTP in nature. Postgress and MySQL both have duplicated all the relevant featurs of Sybase/Oracle/DB2, and at a fraction of the cost in systems - let along license fees.

    I am guessing that just as Linux has eaten the low end sales of HP-UX, Solaris, Irix, classic AIX, and Digital UNIX systems - MySQL and Postgress will much on the soft underbelly of database software (OLTP servers with 4 database engines or fewer that have database footprints of less than 100GB).

    Scaleability, and a few decision support features are all that are left and this "battle" will have been won, and the only Oracle can do is a holding action much like IBM Mainframes have done against desktop computers.