Free Software Law in Peruvian Congress

An Anonymous Coward writes "There is a story on oreillynet.com on the response by a Peruvian Congressman to Microsoft's letter opposing a proposed Free Software Law. Here's the translated letter and this is the original letter that Microsoft submitted in response to the proposed law. It's always cool to see governments trying to enact these kinds of laws and watch the Microsoft backlash against them :)."

article-timesaver (slightly redundant)

[b_pretender]

It's always cool to see governments trying to enact these kinds of laws and watch the Microsoft backlash against them :)."

Not Cool. Very uncool

OTOH, Here's the summary of the big long letter:

From reading the Bill it will be clear that once passed:
-the law does not forbid the production of proprietary software
-the law does not forbid the sale of proprietary software providing that the source code is included with the purchase
-the law does not specifiy which concrete software to use
-the law does not dictate the supplier from whom software will be bought
-the law does not limit the terms under which a software product can be licensed, providing that the entire source code is included with the product.

What the Bill does express clearly, is that, for software to be acceptable for the state it is not enough that it is technically capable of fulfilling a task, but that further the contractual conditions must satisfy a series of requirements reguarding the license, without which the State cannot guarantee the citizen adequate processing of his data, watching over its integrity, confidentiality, and accessibility throughout time, as these are very critical aspects for its normal functioning.

He then goes on to describe the advantages of open sourced software. Everybody on Slashdot has heard these arguments, so there's not really much to read. The above quote, however, describes the law, so I figured you might look at that.

Scoreboard!

[Jeffrey Baker]

The author of this letter really goes for Microsoft's throat. Check out this paragraph:

The inclusion of the intellectual property of others in works claimed as one's own is not a practice that has been noted in the free software community; whereas, unfortunately, it has been in the area of proprietry software. As an example, the condemnation by the Commercial Court of Nanterre, France, on 27th September 2001 of Microsoft Corp. to a penalty of 3 million francs in damages and interest, for violation of intellectual property (piracy, to use the unfortunate term that your firm commonly uses in its publicity).

Yow! Where can I get an informed legislator like Dr. Edgar David Villanueva Nuñez to represent me?

MS Peru is every bit as evil as MS USA

[ottffssent]

The letter MS Peru wrote (If I get a chance, I'll post a translation later) regarding this bill uses all the tricks we've seen them use in the USA. The letter intentionally misunderstands provisions, disregards inconvenient legal precident when useful and adopts a hardline legalist (v. moralist) attitude when useful, and makes bombastic claims about the dire consequences of even considering OSS/Free Software.

Hopefully Microsoft's rather weaker hold on the Peruvian government will allow them to get some reasonable guidelines in place so they don't get screwed like the US government.

Overview....

[univgeek]

This legislator seems to be the smartest one on the block....

The reasons he gives for the Peruvian govt. to go with Open Source rather than proprietary SW are to the point. He blasts each and every point made by the MS rep. The whole Bill is specifying the standards for purchase of SW by the govt. alone, and he uses that to cudgel MS completely.

The main points for the use of OS are...
Free access to public information by the citizen.
Permanence of public data.
Security of the State and citizens.

He then goes on to say how MS does not provide these and how OS is a better alternative. He makes it sound like a crime for a govt. to NOT use OS/open standard protocols.

The way he has used MS's points against itself and shown the contradiction between their various points was almost funny. It sounds like a school teached administering a sound whipping to a truant.

You have gotta read this....
Google cache [216.239.51.100]....

Re:spy code

[Tony-A]

concerned with closed-source programs being potential security problems
Among other things, but that should grab the most headlines.
Even worse than being broken is being unrepairable. Closed source is fundamentally unrepairable by the victims.

Re:These countries understand what the US doesn't.

[tve]

Uhm, who cares? Programmers don't have some unalienable right to make money.

Look at it this way: if the demand for a particular piece of software is high enough, somehow it will get written. Either some volunteer picks it up or some group or corporation that needs it badly enough will hire a professional programmer to do the job.

This may slow down innovation a bit in the short run (I think it won't), but the long-term benefits are obvious: a perpetually growing code repository that people can use to improve upon.

</non-sequiturs>

That's not the only one.

[TheFrood]

Another good zinger:

In addition, a reading of your opinion would lead to the conclusion that the State market is crucial and essential for the proprietary software industry, to such a point that the choice made by the State in this bill would completely eliminate the market for these firms. If that is true, we can deduce that the State must be subsidising the proprietary software industry. In the unlikely event that this were true, the State would have the right to apply the subsidies in the area it considered of greatest social value; it is undeniable, in this improbable hypothesis, that if the State decided to subsidize software, it would have to do so choosing the free over the proprietary, considering its social effect and the rational use of taxpayers money.

This guy is sharp.

Re:These countries understand what the US doesn't.

[tve]

Who are these "people" you speak of? I find it rather funny that a lot of "Open Source" proponents, who obviously aren't really programmers, assume that just because the source code is available just about anyone with a little tech background can just go make some changes to have it function the way they want!! Hah hah. That might work fine for a 5 line Perl script (ie. 95% of everything on Sourceforge and Freshmeat) but it doesn't work for real-world software!

Well, I can only speak from experience. The few times I really needed a new feature or bug fixed in some program I was using, changes to be made were pretty straight forward. I imagine this would be the case with any well-designed (read: modular) program, but then I have been known to be a little optimistic at times...

Interesting comment

[TheRealFixer]

From the letter:
It should be obvious from the preceding two paragraphs that the Bill does not harm free private enterprise, since the latter can always choose under what conditions it will produce software; some of these will be acceptable to the State, and others will not be since they contradict the guarantee of the basic principles listed above.

Interesting statement. Basically, they are saying that the government has the right to set restrictions as to what kinds of software they will buy and use, and Microsoft has the right to make software that meets their restrictions. It makes perfect sense, and is also quite fair.

If I decide I am NOT going to buy a car that has power windows (no pun intended) becuase I consider that feature to be a security risk, a car company cannot force me to buy their car with power windows when there are other manufacturers who make cars within the restricions I've set. That's my right as a consumer. The burden is on the car manufacturer to create a product that I would buy, or else lose me as a customer. That's all a part of free trade and consumer choice.

Re:A great read

[cthugha]

You may also be interested in a kuro5hin article [kuro5hin.org] reproducing the Hansard record of a speech by Thomas Babbington Macaulay, member of the House of Commons, advocating against a bill to extend the period that copyright endures after an author's death. He makes a lot of the points we're trying to get our legislators to understand, in 1841. Every word of the speech is just pure class. I hope I'll be able to reach the standard of argument and reasoning exmplified by this speech and this letter one day, although I'm afraid it might not be possible :(.

Re:A great read

[Malcontent]

This letter should be required reading for every open source advocate. Put it in your own words and blast any MS astroturfer with it. This is serious ammunition folks make use of it.

Trying to be a devil's advocate (a bit) :)

[Anonymous Coward]

The letter is really good, but in part this is because the original one from MS Peru is quite weak in its arguments.

So with a sincere respect to Dr. Edgar David Villanueva Nunez style and thought let me touch some of his weak points.

1. Free and open-source software movements did produce some high-quality pieces of software. But not all application domains are covered equally well. The choice of server-side software and development tools is broad and there are many high-quality products. Can the same be said about productivity applications? Is there a free/open-source alternative to an advanced vector graphics editor (like Adobe Illustrator or Macromedia FreeHand)? There are many areas where free software is of too low quality or simply doesn't exist. BTW, I believe this is due to objective reasons and unlikely to change soon. What if Peruvian governmental employees will really need such software to have their work done?
   
   
2. Dr. Edgar David Villanueva Nunez writes: ...it is well-known that one of the most notable virtues of free software is its stability. I am not persuaded by the references to "well-known" facts. Especially if I can easily see the examples, which disprove them. Last time I checked AbiWord died every 5-10 minutes.
   
   
3. Dr. Edgar David Villanueva Nunez writes: Once a policy of using free software has been established (which certainly, does imply some cost) then on the contrary migration from one system to another becomes very simple, since all data is stored in open formats. This is obviously an oversimplification. Transferring complex data from a proprietary closed format without vendor's help can be a tough job, but this doesn't mean that a badly designed and poorly-documented open format is "very simple" to work with.
   

Re:These countries understand what the US doesn't.

[tve]

Nobody does but if you are smart you should have learned by now that systems motivated by financial rewards ( capitalism and free market economy) are way more productive than systems that are do not offer such rewards ( communism.)

That is exactly my point: no artificial measures are necessary to ensure programmmers make money. Let the market sort it out. If the required software is somehow produced without programmers making money, well, tough luck for them. However, I believe there will always be a demand for (custom) software that will not be met by free (as in 'gratis') software.