Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

World Map Shows Countries Requiring Open Source Software (networkworld.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the it's-the-law dept.

"Europe and South America are the biggest hotspots for open-source use in government," reports Network World, while Bulgaria requires all software written for the government to be FOSS. Slashdot reader alphadogg quotes their report: It's become increasingly common over the past decade or so to see laws being passed to either mandate the use of open-source software or, at the very least, encourage people in government who make procurement decisions to do so. Here's a map of the status of open-source laws around the world.

14 of 32 comments (clear)

  1. It Makes Sense by negRo_slim · · Score: 1

    It makes sense but it doesn't make money. So don't expect to see mandated or even encouraged FOSS here in the United States on any kind of meaningful level.

    Why sell support or service when you can sell that AND the software.

    --
    On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
    1. Re:It Makes Sense by SpaghettiPattern · · Score: 1

      The map is about use in governments. At any rate FOSS cannot be used as a ransom tool for corporations. The issue on whether "it makes money" is moot. But if you want to bring up money, in the long term the US admin would most likely save taxpayers money by switching to FOSS. And US corporations will be forced to fend for themselves even more, without a wealthy uncle to sponsor their businesses.

      --

      I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
    2. Re:It Makes Sense by Bert64 · · Score: 2

      The government does not make money from software, software costs them money.
      The only reason for the government not to favor open source would be external commercial influences.

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
    3. Re:It Makes Sense by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      NSA, they played and now US corporations must pay. Basically the big driver is security and closed source proprietary code with NSA and FBI back doors, even just the hint of them will all be kicked out because everyone knows the US government would blackmail countries by threatening to shut down power stations, traffic systems, delete medical records, shut down airports, basically everyone kind of criminal act imaginable with total control back doors. Not the distrust is aimed at the US alone, no one can trust anyone in that market any more and that is down to the NSA and the US government (Don't blame the messenger, blame the cyber criminals).

      This will also impact arms sales, who can trust another countries electronics if they can send all your combat planes tumbling out of the sky with one single satellite transmission.

      FOSS will start turning up all over the place and M$ with windows anal probe 10 certainly helped push it along a whole lot faster

      Consider a governments requirement to keep the privacy of it's citizens protected when they communicate with their government. When their citizens computers have been hacked, will it even be possible to report a crime committed by M$ from a windows 10 computer, as they will know you reported it and can wipe out your system. You can not even vote via your computer without breaking electoral laws that require anonymous voting, as M$ will be able to monitor your vote, a criminal act by M$.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    4. Re:It Makes Sense by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      The biggest problem with the US isn't capitalism but a culture of pointing their finger at someone else.
      They buy software and pay for an army of consultants even if their staff is just as good if not better. Not because they are expecting something better, but someone to point their finger when something goes wrong.
      You get a FOSS software package. It has a flaw, there will be fingers pointing in all directions who chose the software, who reviewed it, did anyone check the source, if we are to fix it, how are we going to be sure it is there on the next upgrade, and it goes away who's fault is it that it slipped away...

      That is the problem. We creased a blame culture and that culture is amplified in government. The vendors and consultants know that they will take the blame fix the problem or excuse it. Then when all the fuss settled down they get their contract renewed.
      This finger pointing culture is more of a hinderance than an asset as most established companies are crippled in fear of trying to do something new. And spend a lot of extra money towards preventing risk, because they made the cost of failure more than the reward of success.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  2. Open Source Freedom? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Hmmmm. Is requiring open source freedom?

  3. Red Hat makes billions, grew 100% 5 years by raymorris · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Red Hat has grown almost 100% over the last five years and has billions in revenue. The counter-argument would be Microsoft, but you may have noticed Microsoft has been open-sourcing stuff too, and making billions.

    At the same time, open source saved my last employer, a government agency, a ton of money. In many cases, it just works better all around to share. The company selling the software and services doesn't have the cost of developing everything from scratch, and customers aren't dependent on a single vendor.

  4. It's the opposite! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Those countries don't need free software anymore as they already adopted it an a wide base.

    It's all those other poor countries that still rely on proprietary crap that really need more free software!

    1. Re:It's the opposite! by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Everybody needs it. As far as governments go, they need it so that regardless of who they hire to do their IT work, they'd have the sources to go to in the event of a major migration of either hardware or software. Say Kim Jong Un fell in love w/ the Itanium and wants to run the Nork regime on that. He'd need FOSS to compile and run on it, and along w/ it, the last FreeBSD or Linux that ran on that. Once he does that, he can buy all rights to the platform from Intel & HP, and have a nationalized CPU on which he can run it. He can even embed some into missiles that he tests in his sabre rattling, so that the Japs or US mistake it for a nuke }:-)

  5. Re:This is propaganda actually by Kjella · · Score: 1

    [wall of text]

    You know, your argument would come across better if you could divide it into paragraphs. I think where most of it starts and ends is that despite totally dominating other sectors like cell phones and supercomputers, Linux has not been able to conquer the basic corporate desktop. Even if what you do today is just mail and office, chances are better that you're running Windows/Outlook/MS Office than anything else. I've heard for almost 20 years that MS Office was pretty much "done" around Office 97 but none the less it's utterly dominating.

    I'm not hoping for an utopia where all software will be written by magic fairies, but I still have a lingering hope that some day you won't expect to pay for software that covers the basics. Some 99% of what I see could have been created in Libre Office or Google Docs, it's not that they really need MS Office. People use it because that's what other people use. I think my workplace could have done just as well on open source, if the situation was reversed. It's being the odd one out trying to lead a change that costs dearly.

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  6. US: 20% policy by Xtifr · · Score: 2

    A new policy (a pilot program) in the US is that federal agencies must (with some important exceptions) release at least 20% of any in-house code they develop as open source.

    On hearing this, my brother quickly whipped up a script to print every fifth letter in a text file. :)

  7. Re:This is propaganda actually by Bert64 · · Score: 1

    It's hard to compete against an incumbent, even when you offer a massively superior product and have a huge marketing budget to promote it.
    In markets where there was no incumbent influence, linux has generally beaten microsoft hands down.

    Linux will never conquer the corporate desktop as it currently exists, but what is far more likely to happen is that the desktop becomes a small niche for specific use cases while the mass market moves on to web based applications that can be accessed from any device. For these uses android devices are already well suited.

    As for the remaining desktop niche, microsoft may decide that it's not worth their time to serve a much smaller less profitable market and pull out altogether.

    --
    http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
  8. Re:Error in map by morane · · Score: 1
    That's indeed a bad map :
    • "No data" and "no law" shouldn't be in the same category
    • The map key is badly ordered
  9. Re:CR/LF by slashrio · · Score: 1

    My guess is that he put the necessary CR/LFs in his text, but that this giiky Slashdot didn't show them.

    --
    "Trump!!", the new Godwin.