UN Summit Tones Down Open-Source Stance

akb writes "CBR is reporting that the latest draft of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Plan of Action has considerably removed language that promoted open source awareness, the creation of intellectual property mechanisms supporting open source and the creation of a UN 'Programmers Without Frontiers' body to support open source software in developing nations. This language was removed from earlier versions to make the document more palatable for business and commercial interests. In recent years commercial software interests, notably Microsoft, have lobbied hard to keep governments from openly preferring open source over proprietary software. Other issues to be debated include the archiving of and access to government information, access to wireless spectrum, government subsidies of Internet access, Internet taxes and international cooperation on information security."

Comments

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

[Daniel Dvorkin]

The new wording is a masterpiece of fake balance. (Do they have Fox News writing their drafts for them?)

In the new draft, these are replaced with a more general description of how governments should "promote awareness among all stakeholders of the possibilities offered by different software models... including proprietary, open-source and free software".

Um, no. Proprietary software vendors do just fine "promoting awareness" of their products on their own. If governments give equal weight to proprietary and free/OSS, in practice that means that governments will be shilling for M$ just as hard as M$'s own PR dept., and free/OSS providers will be out in the cold. I suspect this will be especially true in poor countries -- the ones who would benefit most from a push for free/OSS -- because, let's face it, that's where government workers are most susceptible to outright bribery.

Too bad. It was a nice idea while it lasted.

Re:Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

[IAR80]

Fortunately some countries rich/poor are starting to implement the free/OSS model. Some are doing it for political reasons, other for economical reasons, but by doing so it will put more "pressure" on the poor countries's corrupt decision makers when they will have to account for the zillions spent on purchassing crrapy software when they could just opt for the free/OSS model like the "civilized" world.

Re:Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

[Anonymous Coward]

The unique advantage to open source is that it's much more difficult to squash out than an existing vendor, who may be destroyed by 'cutting the air supply'. Propably the only way to remove OSS from the landscape is changing laws, locking out using legal means (patents) etc., which is hard. So, OSS product, if viable will propably last until commercial competitors will be squashed -- pretty much like Microsoft, who gained many markets by constantly pushing competitors over many years. Is MS able to lobby forever in so many places ? Let's see who will be more persistent ;)

Re:Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

[egarland]

The problem here is not just one of marketing. They have spread the idea that the BSA and Microsoft have been cramming down everyone's throats, that software should be evaluated on the merits of the product, ignoring the merits of the system involved in crating the product. This is like a construction company insisting that when a building project goes out to bid the only thing evaluated are price and the size of the building created with no constraints on the construction methods used, safety, environmental impact, or maintainability. They want eliminate concideration of evaluation criteria where they inevitably lose. The software companies are doing the equivalent of building the building in such a way that only they can repair it when it fails and ensuring that it will fail over time and when it does, they insist that it can't be repaired, it needs to be torn down and rebuilt. This is not the right model for infrastructure.

Software companies are afraid that governments are going to start to realize they have done the equivalent of paying a company to build their roads while giving them the rights to put tollbooths wherever they want. It's ridiculous. There is a lot of infrastructure software out there (operating systems, relational databases, office suites, etc.) that have been paid for 100 times over by governments and they still don't own them.

Re:Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

[_Sprocket_]

First thing's first. Paying jobs. Americans/Canadians/Europeans have the luxury of taking a chance and coding up Open Source for the morality of it. But in other places, food on the table comes first. Closed software puts food on the table -easier-.

Exactly. Because all the jobs for writing that proprietary code are created in the developing country in question. By using a proprietary software package, you are esentially paying coders in your own developing tech job market.

Oh. Wait. No. Most of this development happens off-shore. If your countrymen are being hired to code for these projects, they had to emegrate first to do it - further weaking your own tech market.

it's possible they have a point

[Illissius]

Open source software is a means and not an end, so if better/more cost-effective software can be created through commercial means, then it doesn't at all matter whether or not a competing, inferior product was created through open source. That said, the way things currently stand, there are precious few areas where commercial software has the advantage (off the top of my head, these are games, Mac OS X, and Opera).

Re:it's possible they have a point

[domninus.DDR]

It is interesting to note that of the few things you named you included OS X. Interesting because it is BSD based.

Goes to show..

[grub]

Most of the world has the best politicians money can buy.

Open Source is not the only source

[Davak]

This, of course, is due to lobbying from Microsoft. Lobbying works.

However, I am not sure that we all believe that open source software is perfect for every single situation. Even if you do believe this, I am not sure that it should be the stance of the UN.

"Business has consistently stated that it is essential for governments to ensure technologically neutral policy towards different software models," said the delegate from the business lobby, during the conference debate.

I just don't see how you can't agree with this. Open source deserves the freedom to grow and expand for its benefits. However, closed source software should not be punished in the market.

Closed and opened source software provides jobs and services for an ass load of people. The UN should treat them equally and fairly.

Davak

Re: Open Source is not the only source

[Black Parrot]

> Closed and opened source software provides jobs and services for an ass load of people. The UN should treat them equally and fairly.

For commonly used software this provision of jobs increasingly depends on artificial barriers to the acceptance of free alternatives. Now that millions of people are programmers with supercomputers on their desks and an itch to scratch, and now that the cost of software distribution is approximately zero, the unconstrained market value of a line of code for a commonly used application is rapidly converging to zero.

The anti-FOSS lobbying is merely an example of the artificial barriers that prop of the prices and keep all those people employed. (Though I doubt that there are actually that many people earning their living by programming operating systems, Web browsers, and word processors these days. In the future the way to make money as a programmer will be to implement special-purpose applications that only scratch the itch of some company's shareholders.)

Re:Open Source is not the only source

[fitten]

The UN shouldn't be a soapbox about markets, imo. Would the UN talk about sale and distribution of bread, milk, or CocaCola? (not talking about humanitarian aid)

Lobbying

[simgod]

I guess if it were a resolution USA would just veto it like all those that told Isreal to respect international law (around 30).

I don't get it...

[JayBlalock]

Even Microsoft doesn't have the resources to buy off entire world governments. (they spend too much keeping the US bought.) Why would presumably rational delegates and senators pay much heed to a single company advocating change in treaty\declaration language which obviously has no purpose EXCEPT to benefit that single company? Especially one whose lack of product security and general badness have become world reknown even in non-techie circles.

There's gotta be something else going on...

Re:I don't get it...

[Bunji X]

Well, politicians are not that aware of differences in the software market. They might have heard bad things about proprietary software (ms security), but also bad things about OSS (sco might own linux). Then they base their decisions on what their advisors tell them is the reasonable thing to do, combined with what they have heard/researched for themselves.

Enter, lobbyists. These guys actively hands out information that support their case. Corporations, having lots of money, can hire professional lobbyists (people who know how to get the message through) to do this full time, while OSS projects might have a few people (not professional lobbyists) doing this in their own spare time. Wonder whose words of wisdom the politicians and their advisors will be hearing the most?

You don't need to buy off anyone. It's enough making sure that your side is the one "shouting loudest" to get things going your way in politics, as long as the subject isn't something with which politicians or their associates are very familiar with themselves.

Good

[illuminata]

The government really needs to stay out of promoting things one way or the other. Let things handle themselves. The U.N. shouldn't be forcing people to be aware of open source nor should they be trying to write mechanisms supporting it, they should be trying to solve real problems at hand (albeit I don't like a massive government body like the U.N.).

Like it or not, open source software isn't always the best choice. Why not try using the best software for the job, open sourced or not? Purchasing software isn't evil.

With that said, please refrain with "but Microsoft does evil things" posts. Millions make money from software, not just Microsoft.

Doesn't really matter does it?

[Interruach]

They want to promote OSS and non-free software equally. Fair enough. The most important thing is open standards, at the end of the day if people want to spend money on something that they can't change that's up to them.
I don't see how this will make a difference anyway. People have heard of linux, bsd, apache, mozilla, openoffice and so on. And once the word is out they'll give it a try. And once other people have tried and found success it becomes a viable option. No-body likes policies dictated from the top down: And even in places where they have a windows-only policy you can still find the occasional linux/*bsd box or mac.

Sad state of affairs?

[MattGWU]

When business interests have such a large influance on a major international governance (policy? diplomacy?) body. It's clear enough that business has a great deal of pull in US domestic policy, and I'm sure the same is true to some extent in other countries, but now they can tell the *United Nations* what to do (alright...strongly suggest what to do)? Hope they don't get inflated heads over this.

And no, this isn't the end of the world. This isn't the most important issue the UN is dealing with right now, and it certainly isn't time to 'welcome our new proprietary commercial software product masters'. However, it seems pretty clear that they had a plan going when they were going to look favorably on Open Source solutions for governments and developing nations, a position that was likely hatched internally. A position that was changed by outside pressure. Bet they thought it was a pretty good idea they had going!.

This probably isn't one of those "Who is REALLY in charge" issues, but it makes one think. Then again, maybe it doesn't.

U.N. Irrelevant, Governments Irrelevant

[Crashmarik]

This is really a non issue. Keith Laumer got the right of the matter, Diplomats exist mainly to consume excess hors d'oeuvres. Programmers exist to turn cafeinated beverages into code.

I love hearing that Munich or Massachussets, or Brazil has adopted open standadrs or open source but if they didn't that wouldn't matter either.

Open source succeeds when and where it is better. The way for OSS to get better is for the people involved to concentrate on making it better.

The Open Source movemnet existed long before the first Government Organization realized it was a good idea. If another government never decides to recogniza or adopt it, it won't miss a beat.

What will hurt Open Source is corruption by organizations that don't get it and never will. The UN is inherently about compromise. The GPL is about take it or leave it. Theres not alot room for agreement there.

Doesn't really matter, until...

[lenski]

...I cannot participate in my society unless I've paid some particular profit-motivated vendor for the privilege. I accept responsibilities like paying taxes, obeying laws, behaving in a civil way, etc. I do not accept for one second the idea that, after paying big big bucks in taxes, I get to pay yet more for high cost software to participate.

My favorite example is government web sites that "work better with particular browsers associated with expensive desktop operating systems" and have subtle problems that interfere with my attempts to access them using the tools available on my engineering workstation.

MS: Your customers want OSS

[Katravax]

Microsoft spends so much time fighting OSS and badmouthing it, but I haven't heard them get a hint on the obvious: Their customers want it. I personally use Windows and have been employed for a decade as a Windows programmer. However, with every passing season, I trust MS less and use OSS more on my own. At some point I will break away from them for one reason: MS has not responded to me as a customer.

MS adds features that their large clients want, so why can't they respond with the source as well? Rather than fighting OSS so much, they should realize they're not losing so much based on the price of the product, but on the license and the source. As a customer that has spent thousands on MS software, I have lately done it grudgingly because I do not yet know enough to migrate everything I do to an open-source OS.

At my office, many new machines go up as Linux or BSD boxes because we fear the recent Windows licensing terms. Rather than making us, their customers, nervous about MS and the impact their licenses have on our business, MS should respond with a soft hand rather than the iron gauntlet. Some licenses we've read even make us nervous to have our own source code on a Windows box. I know I haven't said anything that hasn't been said a million times before, but if my OS vendor of choice -- Microsoft -- would get a clue and be responsive to me and the business I work for, I'd consider the alternatives much less than I do now.