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Microsoft Lobby Denies the State of Chile Access To Free Software

Posted by Soulskill on from the lockin-leverage-legislate dept.

walterbyrd writes: Fresh on the heels of the entire Munich and Linux debacle, another story involving Microsoft and free software has popped up across the world, in Chile. A prolific magazine from the South American country says that the powerful Microsoft lobby managed to turn around a law that would allow the authorities to use free software. "An independent member of the Chilean Parliament, Vlado Mirosevic, pushed a bill that would allow the state to consider free software when the authorities needed to purchase or renew licenses. ... A while later, the same member of the Parliament, Daniel Farcas, proposed another bill that actually nullified the effects of the previous one that had just been adopted. To make things even more interesting, some of the people who voted in favor of the first law also voted in favor of the second one. ... The new bill is even more egregious, because it aggressively pushes for the adoption of proprietary software. Companies that choose to use proprietary software will receive certain tax breaks, which makes it very hard for free software to get adopted."

7 of 159 comments (clear)

  1. Or you could blame Chile's MPs by i+kan+reed · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Who kowtowed to any lobbyist, regardless of which one it happens to be.

    1. Re:Or you could blame Chile's MPs by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It is difficult to tell from either the summary or TFA if that is even true. The summary is horribly written (what is a "prolific magazine"?) and uses the word "bill" and "law" interchangeably. ALL countries that have income tax allow software purchases to be deducted, so I don't see why that is thrown in. These tax deductions apply to Open Source (which is not necessarily zero priced) as well as proprietary software. TFA would be far better if it had more facts, and focused less on trying to generate outrage.

  2. Publicly Funded Governments by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    should always equal OSS/Free/Libre software.

    - Usually better software quality.
    - Prevents monetary kickbacks.
    - No stupid license fees (an evil in itself)

    In this regard, I am in agreement with RMS.

    1. Re:Publicly Funded Governments by jedidiah · · Score: 5, Insightful

      All government data needs to be open to auditing. Thus any government data needs to be stored in open formats that can be examined and manipulated with tools that can be sourced from multiple parties. Furthermore, the government should not be in the business of helping entrench particular software monopolies.

      The nature of the binaries being run is really just a side show.

      It's the DATA that needs to be open.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  3. Details? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not to be a party-pooper but there isn't anything at all in the article about what "the Microsoft lobby" actually did or not. Only that a politician that were against the free software support law from the start managed to get a contrary law passed a while later.

  4. Re:Microsoft cannot compete in the marketplace... by QuietLagoon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'd argue that using windows is easier for most people than it is using Linux....

    Why is Microsoft afraid of allowing the marketplace to decide?

  5. Re:Microsoft cannot compete in the marketplace... by walterbyrd · · Score: 5, Interesting

    > I'd argue that using windows is easier for most people than it is using Linux.

    Why? When I want to launch a browser, I click the browser icon. What is so difficult? When I want to print, I can clink the printer icon. And so on. I would say it is *much* easier to go from Win7 to Gnome2, than from Win7 to Win8. People keep posting about Linux being difficult to use. Why? What is so difficult about it?

    > Not to mention, they would need to retrain all their personal to use linux

    You mean like having to retrain people to use Win8? Win8 is radically different than previous versions of Windows. How about retraining people to that "ribbon" crap in ms-office. Why is it: if somebody does not want to learn the new MS whatever, that person is lazy and stupid. But, nobody should suffer the burden of learning Linux?

    > make their own variant for security purpose

    What?

    > and then actually Support that version of linux. In the end, that would cost too much.

    What makes you think so? What makes you think supporting Linux would cost more than supporting Windows?