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Peru Passes Free Software Law
wlan0 writes "Peru has passed a law favoring Open Source in the Government (translated using Google translator) after some time and some fights thanks to the help of Peruvian Congressman Villanueva and APESOL(Peruvian Free Software Association). OpenSource.org also provides the full text of the Bill."
Resolutions aren't laws. Everything uttered by a group of politicians isn't a law, you know. What you're looking at there is just a fancy of way of saying "Here's something.. do we agree? Okay, we do."
The law is not to compete with MSoft , the law is to have an open format. Something that will allow Peruvians free access to documents *we* (I am Peruvian) are entrusting our goverment to saveguard for us. If Msoft or any other company wishes to offer their products/services in Peru, all they need is to suport open formats. By your comments you demonstrate that Msoft FUD machinery is working, as only they present this subject as a competition between Open Vs Msoft. Hope this clears it for you.
In spanish it says "Software libre", it means Free Software, free as in speech.
It doesn't say "Software gratis", gratis means without cost.
read further in the Opensource.org text. Near the bottom of the bill you'll find the following:
Article 4 - Definition of Free Software
Free Software shall be defined for the effects of this law, that whose license shall guarantee the user without additional cost the following:
* Unrestricted use of the program for any purpose.
* Unrestricted access to the respective source code.
* Exaustive inspection of the working mechanisms of the program.
* Use of the internal mechanisms and arbitrary portions of the software, to adapt them to the needs of the user.
* Freedom to make and distribute copies of the software.
* Modification of the software and freedom to distribute said modifications of the new resulting sofftware, under the same license of the original software.
while the term open source isn't explicitly used, I think the intent from article 4 is that open source software is what is desired.
The original text says "libre", which is free as in freedom, as opposed to "gratis".
...and I know that at least thousands of people have wanted to shoot themselves after working with Windows!
(Good thing for me there's not actually a "-1 insensitive clod" modifier! (I'm really not that heartless!))
Please ignore any obvious problems in this post.
Willing or unwillingly you are spreading FUD.
The Peruvian congress is just guaranteen that Peruvians have free and unrestricted access to their information. (i.e. no propietary formats)
Microsoft (or any other company for that matter) is welcome to compete for the market by supporting open formats.
Now that this is clear, to counteract the mis-information your comment may spread, please say outloud 100 times: "This Law Has Nothing To Do With Microsoft"
Direct link to Guardian translation here.
This is the old version of the law. The bill that was approved is: http://www.congreso.gob.pe/relatoria/documentos/PR OY1609Software.pdf
This is not strictly speaking a free software law. It is a law that norms the use, adquisition and adjustment of software in public administration.
Part 4 states that no hardware which forces to use a specific software should be used. Part 7 states that the compliance must be certified by a local authority. Failure to comply must be sanctioned.
Actually, Congressman Villanueva is very clear that software freedom is what he was after, what the bill seeks, and why he asks for free software by name ("software libre"). Read Villanueva's letter to Microsoft's rep who tried to reframe the debate in the same way.
The reason why Microsoft tried to reframe the debate away from software freedom and why Villanueva was so insistent that Microsoft not do so is clear—the open source movement dismisses software freedom. The open source movement does not stand for the same philosophy as the free software movement. Software freedom is what proprietors fear. They have no argument against it. As we see with Microsoft's reps talking to Massachusetts, they are constantly trying to frame the debate around the cost of software. As if what you pay for software is the single most important issue to consider. Congressman Villanueva and the rest of the free software movement know that this is not so ("It is also necessary to make it clear that the aim of the Bill we are discussing is not directly related to the amount of direct savings that can by made by using free software in state institutions."), therefore they don't stand for such misrepresentation. Properly, Villanueva also insists on calling proprietary software "proprietary" and not "commercial" as so many (even on /.) will do.
The theme here is on what rights users have with the program, not how quickly it can be developed, how much money one can save, or how few bugs there are in the software. The free software movement has nothing against the development methodology that the open source movement stands for, but the free software movement says that the open source movement's philosophy isn't enough.
Digital Citizen
Then You should RTFL = Read the freaking law :
The law tittle is : Ley de neutralidad tecnologia en la contrataciones de licencias y servicios informáticos
Badly translated reads : Law for the technological *NEUTRALITY* on the contracts and services of information systems.
Neutral = Nobody is being favoured here.
If your software, meets the conditions of "openen-nes" & fiscal responsability we don't care who made it.
Further more (From the freaking article) :
"El proyecto aprobado resume las iniciativas legislativas 1609, 2344, 3030, 7389, 8251 y 9026 que tienen el mismo propósito a favor del software libre. "
Which basically says: The digest you are reading is a just a small amendment to a legislative action that has been 3+ years on the making.
You can paint it anyway you want to, but the true "spirit" of the law is to protect access to the public data. anything wrong with that ?
I stand by my original comment: willingly or unwillingly , you are spreading misinformation.
Smart people adapt to changing situations AND do what they enjoy. It's not a difficult concept.
The text of the bill is not what is in opensource.org. The real bill approved (at http://www.congreso.gob.pe/relatoria/documentos/PR OY1609Software.pdf) does not mandate any use of free software at all, just makes sure the government is "neutral" when procuring software. Microsoft should be happy with it.
:)
Other interesting thing - this law defines "free software" as the ones covered by the GPL license. BSD-licensed software are considered proprietary software under this law. Stallman should be happy with it
Well, first of all, I live in Peru. Even more, my employer is currently a ".gov.pe".
Here in Peru, a law means *nothing* until the "reglamento de la ley" is approved (it's some specific regulation concerning exactly *how* will the law will be applied). It can take months, or more realistic, years until that is done. In many cases, the regulation is never approved, so the law is useless.
will be extremely difficult to implement FOSS in a user level (heck, how will we replace Oracle? Or even MS Excel, Word & Powerpoint? Its still a long way for OO).
I'm not against open source, but what the law states is unenforceable.
PS: However, cheers to APESOL for the effort.
We'd like to remark that even this is not a free software specific bill, It was based on all the previous proposals made on the subject.
I and many of us believe that its a important step towards making free software a truly and goverment supported alternative, since it also remarks, and will be regulated after making the official announce, through its own reglament, the benefit of free software when choosing alternatives for projects, avoid work duplication and saves money. Although for most goverment agencies free software it something already being deployed and used on many of them now, for instance the army is just moving their computing infrastructure to free software, training their personel and so.
This is the translation of the bill that was just passed by the congress: http://www.apesol.org/news/199
Note that we are still waiting for the president to publish the bill in the official newspaper, only then it will be really official.
The law just passed is the latest adjustment to a series of laws with the objectives that I mention (Open-nes of the software and fiscal responsability)
If you look at the last paragraph of TFA , you can read:
"El proyecto aprobado resume las iniciativas legislativas 1609, 2344, 3030, 7389, 8251 y 9026 que tienen el mismo propósito a favor del software libre."
Nowhere in the law it says that you may not use a propietary software. (As long as they are willing to give you the source code for examination, your document formats are "open" and you dont force us to buy special hardware to make the software work )
Why is this so hard to understand ?