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Vietnam Going Open Source
An anonymous reader writes "Great article today on SiliconValley.com about Vietnam's solution to software piracy: eliminate Microsoft. Government tech officials are promoting a plan that would require all state-owned companies and government ministries to use open source by 2005. And they would require all computers assembled in Vietnam to be sold with open-source products installed on them."
This would completely eliminate government agency piracy in Vietnam, so why do I get the feeling the BSA's equivalent in Asia isn't going to be very happy about this?
Ok so we're going all open source, who's next? OSX? OS/2? Maybe a Linux distro because it's too "proprietary?". Frankly freedom of choice, even if it is the MS route really needs to be preserved. Thoughts?
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And they would require all computers assembled in Vietnam to be sold with open-source products installed on them."
Well, that could lose the country some contracts for companies that might want to build facilities there to assemble computers..... As much an advocate I am for open source, this sounds like a bad implementation of law.
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This is the inevitable result for most Microsoft forays outside the developed world. Add to that Microsoft's problem of having saturating the markets in the developed world and, as a public company, needing to continue an unsustainable double-digit growth rate. Add to this their market extensions into non-computing markets are lack-luster and largely failed. You have to be worried if you own a lot of MSFT stock or if you are overly invest simply due to being an employee.
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JGSki
In October 1998, the United States announced a new Executive Order directing U.S. Government agencies to maintain appropriate and effective procedures to ensure legitimate use of software. In addition, USTR was directed to undertake an initiative to work with other governments, particularly those in need of modernizing their software management systems or about which concerns have been expressed, regarding inappropriate government use of illegal software.
The United States has achieved considerable progress under this initiative. Countries that have issued decrees mandating the use of only authorized software by government ministries include Bolivia, China, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Czech Republic, France, Ireland, Israel, Jordan, Paraguay, Thailand, the U.K., Spain, Peru, Greece, Turkey, Hungary, Korea, Hong Kong, Macau, Lebanon, Taiwan and the Philippines. Ambassador Zoellick was pleased that these governments have recognized the importance of setting an example in this area and expects that these decrees will be fully implemented. The United States looks forward to the adoption of similar decrees, with effective and transparent procedures that ensure legitimate use of software, by additional governments in the coming year.
Countries which convert to free software become compliant. The alternatives are converting to free software, paying millions (sometimes billions) to Microsoft, or facing trade sanctions by the US. That makes free software look really good.
The whole Special 301 process may thus backfire against commercial software vendors. Microsoft is going to have a fit over this.
What's there to steal? :)
:)
It's given away for free. The only thing they can do which is a violation is to add to the codebase but not contribute the code added (or claim ownership of the code and then sue IBM).
I don't think having a whole country supporting an OS can be that bad of a thing.
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It is something unique about software that very few people get.
Hell if everyone actually paid for their copy of ms software I think they might have a huge problem in finding a bank big enough to keep all the money in.
So to answer your question MS is losing here. Just one more corner of the world where that 95% is just getting a tiny bit smaller. Is this going to mean MS is going to go bankrupt? No of course not. Don't be silly. But an MS with say "only" a 80% share is going to mean that you can no longer just assume that every one uses Windows. Oh everyone can read this Office document.
Remember only zealots want MS destroyed, or if they are windows zealots linux destroyed. The rest of us simply want to choose the best for their needs and be reasonably sure that most data can be exchanged freely between systems.
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I'm not exactly sure which side wins here.
While pirate copies of Windows might not be the best thing that could happen to Microsoft, it is surely not good to the free software movement either. Getting a lot of pirate copies of Windows replaced with free software will be an advantage to the free software movement. You know the major problem in the computer industry right now is, that there are way too many Windows systems. There are so many Windows systems, that you more or less have to make something compatible with those. Microsoft knows that, and they make it as hard as possible to interoperate with Windows. Getting rid of copies of Windows will decrease the amount of power Microsoft has even if it doesn't immediately give Microsoft less money.
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
The real problem in Vietnam (and most other countries run by communist, oligarchical governments) is that IP laws are treated as optional...
Yeah, but would that be a problem for free software? If you talk to Richard Stallman, he looks forward to the day where we don't have any software copyright at all; until that day we have the GPL. The purpose of GPL is to keep others from putting their own licence on modified free software restricting it from use. If there was no copyright, then there would be no legal mechanism to restrict the way people use code, and thus the GPL wouldn't be necisarry. The only mechanism for hording source code would be to keep it secret and well guarded. However, the Vietnam "IP problem" is that there is rampent software copying. In a society like this which considers copying software to be sharing, not stealing, the people would not like companies that held back code, and would have no qualms with leaking that code.
The complete lack of software copyright is exactly what the FSF would like to see. GPL'd software is a step in the process; a feasibility experiment you might say. The purpose of copyright is to provide insentive for the author to create more works. If free software succeeds in displacing proprietary software, then it proves that there is plenty of incentive to create software, even without copyright. In that case copyright is unnecisarry, and even harmful to society because it limits who can use the software without justification. If it turns out that the incentive provided by copyright is necisarry, then the free software movement will never be able to produce enough software as good as proprietary software so it fizzle out or remain on the sidelines, and no one will be harmed.
Note: I did not extend my arguement to all works. Some may need the insentive that copyright provides, others may not. So Vietnam's copyright policies (not IP - there is no such thing as IP) may be bad for some industries, but if the FSF is right (which I think they are) it is not bad for software.
...but they're most certainly aware that, if someone wasn't going to pay for software in the first place, they're better off if that person is running pirated Microsoft software than Linux. Because the more market penetration Linux has, the less reason there is for other people to buy Windows. So while Microsoft's estimated losses will plummet under this new plan, its real losses will rise. Funny how that works.
I'm embarrased that my government, arguably the world's greatest proponent of free trade and the WTO...
I'm sorry, but you've bought into the propoganda of the US and the WTO. "Free trade" has never been anything but a weasel word along the lines of "bipartisanship." What the person who says it really means is that they want things to go their way, and they want a nice word to demonize their opponents who don't knuckle under to their demands. The WTO basically exists to ensure the continued dominance of the Western world over the rest of the planet. Just look on their increasing emphasis on intellectual property laws which only benefit rich countries like America, Japan, and the European nations at the expense of Africa and South America. Particularly, look at the WTO's opinions on medical patents and patents on genetically engineered organisms. The only honest areas for debate in the WTO are when the G8 countries disagree over something, like Europe's refusal to accept GM food, Japan's rice tariffs, and America's steel tariffs.
The WTO is nothing but an undemocratic avenue for the industrialized world's major business interests to foist treaties on us that must be turned into laws like the DMCA or the EUCD.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
The problem is, while the rich countries' labor force is much more efficient relative to poorer countries, they are not as efficient as their wealth suggests (again relative to poor countries.) In a world of completly free and fair trade, you Americans can't possibly ask half the wages you now get. That is doubly true for Europe. It goes without saying rich countries won't give up their relative wealth just because. Restriction of trade is one of the more humane ways of keeping it that way, all alternatives -short of actually making rich people as productive as they should have been, IMHO an impossible feat- involve some sort of destruction of competitiveness of others. Sabotage, terrorism and outright war are time proven ways of doing that.
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