Countries Ponder: GNU/Linux vs. Microsoft 437
koody writes: "IDG has an overview of how many countries are getting drawn into the debate over the relative merits of using open source software rather than Microsoft Corp.'s Windows applications. Seems like many countries would be slowly moving towards the open source community, while a few still pledge allegiance to Microsoft."
Story makes me a little nostalgic... (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, after reading through this article, I think I am glad that the computing world really offers OS choices as it once did so many years ago. It allows people and countries that can't pay large fees to become part of the modern computing age. They'll be able to do things that, maybe, they couldn't possibly afford going with a more expensive O.S. -- especially if it were the only solution.
And really, allowing more and more people the fun and efficiency of computers is a very noteworthy goal.
Few? Many? (Score:3, Interesting)
A good start. (Score:3, Interesting)
Monoculture counter-argument compelling (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Options. (Score:2, Interesting)
In the context of the article, I think it's rather more of a Closed Source vs. Open Source debate. When we're talking about using taxpayer money, there's a very real question of what sort of Return On Investment that we as taxpayers receive.
When using Microsoft (or any closed source provider)products, the end result is that the software fulfills it's function and the government agency (whatever it may be) provides the service it is charged to carry out. By using an open source alternative (one that is equally as effective as it's closed-source counterpart, to be fair) the taxpayers not only receive the government service but also the code that now becomes part of the public domain. It's a Value Added purchase, and makes better sense socially and financially.
IBM (Score:3, Interesting)
these deals.
Perhaps there was something to that slashback article
last night....
Re:Government administrators: It is your duty. (Score:2, Interesting)
However, there is no need for you to ask for all documents, and there are such things ass business practices, even in the "not for profit" government sector. What if some of these documents were about you? Do I have the right to view those things about your person just because my government found it prudent to take records? Clearly no. My rights end where your rights begin.
As taxpayers we get services. If you want to dictate those services run for office.
Finnish initiatives (Score:3, Interesting)
There's also a newer one, made by a member of Finnish parliament Kyösti Karjula [suomi.net] (Center Party):
"Member of Parliament Kyösti Karjula and three other members have made an initiative for the government to take practical measures towards to adopt the Linux operating system in public administration. According to the members, the advantages of Linux are financial savings and better security than in Windows.
'There is also a significant technology political reason for changing over to Linux, because a system based on open source makes it possible to advance [Finnish] know-how.
In December 2001, the IT Department of City of Turku published their final report [turku.fi] on adopting OpenOffice and Linux for the city computer systems. The report takes a "negative" approach, listing the problems encountered, so it's rather interesting read. In the conclusions, they recommended the adoption of OpenOffice and Linux, and to proceed with an extended study and a pilot period.
Turku (my home city) has a population of about 160,000 and the city has about 3000 computers. However, if Turku adopts Linux, dozens of the surrounding small (and large) munincipalities will follow.
FYI (Score:3, Interesting)
GET
Host: www.lp.org
Blah...
Server: Apache 1.3.23 (Unix) PHP/4.1.2
More Blah
# telnet www.democrats.org
GET
Host: www.democrats.org
Blah...
Server: Apache/1.3.22 (Unix) mod_perl/1.26
More Blah
# telnet www.gop.org 80
GET
Host: www.gop.org
Blah...
Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0
More Blah
What does this proove? That all three parties do what they say they will do. The libertarians dont want to spend money on proprietary software because they believe in absolute freedom for each and every person.
The democrats use free software because they hate big corporations and want communism. I have heard open source software described as being communistic in nature, and I dont entirely disagree.
The republicans are rich, like big companies, and like to support big companies. True capatalists, not nessecarily a bad thing.
My vote goes to the Libertarian Pary. Just my $0.02.
Backlash to M$ actions (Score:2, Interesting)
Why was M$ so successful? Because people were pirating their software throughout the world. Everyone copied DOS for all the possible reasons (how many times did you do "format a:
And for businesses and new computers, of course, "strange" practices with agreements asking for the latest M$ software being installed on new computers made it real... not forgetting a few years ago when every computer was bundled with M$ Office.
... Yes, it's the same thing for M$ Office. Why is it so successful? Because mainly it was made available without paying, as bundled or as a copy. Because it was the "de facto" choice, everyone had it.
Now, M$ wants everyone to buy... and everyone to pay for all their software... and finding ways to inhibit/prohibit copy of their precious Windows and Office. It's fine but it won't work with people. That's why a lot of my friends still have Windows 98, Windows ME and Windows 2K. No copy protection. That's why everyone I know still have Office 2K.
The only people I know that have XP are bundled with new computers (no choice now, isn't it strange!). The only people I know that have Office XP are... mmm
There are other arguments too... For example, I have a small company (let say I never unregistered a name, it's dead since a few years ago). I received a letter from M$ saying that I should check all my licenses for their products, that I could be screened. I _HOPE_ I am screened, simply to tell them I never bought and I never will buy any of their crappy software (I run a Powerbook G3) and they should stop bugging me. -- That is the first argument, they harass people.
There is also that unwritten law stipulating that every new computer should have a M$ sticker with its WinXP serial number on it. What is that? I imagine hell in big companies where the unscrupulous employee will simply go and get that serial number for his home, and the company's face when the serial # for that computer will stop working.
So now, companies, gov'ts and people in general are seeking ways to get rid of that cumbersome giant. If they could find a way to get rid of it, they would. Because it's simply stupid to have to buy a piece of software as costly as a XBox simply to run a machine (Windows XP)... and totally stupid to have to buy a piece of software that is also totally mainstream with a price tag as hefty as a full-featured color WinCe PDA (Office XP).
What's left with Linux to do ? It have to be tested, recognized and endorsed by the general public. One first step in my opinion would be to make a X-skin for Windows, where Windows would work precisely as your favorite X, with all the features. A full office suite should be available for that precise X-on-Windows. And it should be user-friendly (let me rephrase: dumb-friendly). Finally, it should be free and compatible.
For me, M$ are shooting themselves in the foot with all these actions. And it's not by harassing people and companies they will get the result they want. I'm sure of it.
Have a nice day
Mike
Possible remedy: open documents. (Score:2, Interesting)
It cited compatibility problems, namely among users trying to receive Microsoft World documents.
My sentiments exactly.
Second... now I haven't thought this all the way through, but one way of helping the software community would be to open up the Word and Excel format, give detailed specs of the formats to all past and current formats, and then require any changed to that format to be released as spec form for n months before the release of Office apps.
The closed nature of Word Docs (especially, though other Office docs have issues too) has several problems:
So with those, you get a monopoly on Office software, tremendous lock-in, and money to burn to try to open up other environments. Now, not that they don't have the right to sell software, but they are a monopoly. I believe this will do more to end that monopoly than hiding IE on the desktop.
This also helps Microsoft in a way. There are some people who don't want to use Word because they're worried about having their information locked in to a proprietary format. This will endure they can always get at their data.
Questions, comments, snide remarks?
Microsoft hates Free Software not Open Source. (Score:2, Interesting)
Contrary to the Free Software community press on these articles, Microsoft loves the Open Source movement. They love it because it speaks to their interest: proprietorship. Microsoft wants people to follow the advice of that movement and release software under the licenses most heavily advocated by that movement—the X11 and new BSD licenses. Microsoft rails against the GNU GPL and the Free Software movement because they don't want users to have software freedom. They want everyone to use software they're not free to inspect, share, or modify. Microsoft is capitulating by distributing GPL'd works (not what you'd expect of the company that called the GNU GPL a "cancer") but few bother to expose how Microsoft isn't following its own advice [microsoft.com]. Microsoft doesn't have a good answer to the multiple ways the GPL enforces software freedom so we get another round of anti-GPL FUD and rebuttals that don't understand the difference between the Open Source and Free Software movements [gnu.org].
Re:No monoculture is a good thing. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Options. (Score:3, Interesting)
That's true, but only because it's not about Microsoft, it's about money. Microsoft is simply the exemplar.
Once money gets involved in software development -- or for that matter, once money gets involved in anything -- it has a hugely out-of-proportion influence on how things are run from that time forward. People who contribute money want a say in things; few contributors have the discipline needed to simply give. Products that bring money for their creators tempt those creators with material rewards; few creators have the discipline to question the motivation of each and every one of their own decisions.
Worst of all, money is perceived as power, and, as Frank Herbert said, "Power attracts the corruptible." Once there is money involved, legions of people who believe in or pretend to believe in such fictions as "business ethics" show up. Some number of them are convincing liars who will tell you how your desire to help more people can be enhanced by better marketing, or how having more money will let you do more... isn't that a *good* thing?
I don't trust Apple or Sun because they are in business. They're in business to make money. They're not ashamed of this. Hell, they're *proud* of it! They brag about it to their stockholders. Yes, stockholders. They're not small businesses where a desire for great software and freedom for everyone can have a mellowing influence on decisions. They're big corporations with marketing departments paying money for ads to create the feeling that these big corporations care about something besides getting even more money.
When you remember that Apple runner freeing all the brainwashed 1984 people, or read about Sun's "Connected Communities", remember that people with marketing degrees -- people who were trained for years in methods to distort the truth for business purposes -- created those images to make you feel a certain way about the companies that sign their paychecks.
One of many reasons I work as much as possible with free-as-in-speech software is that it's often free-as-in-beer, too. When there is money involved, it's *less* money. This minimizes the corruption that comes with money by simply having *less* money.
Or even *no* money. There are lots of people busting their asses making great software and giving it away because they believe in excellence in their work and in helping others. If you were designing a perfect world from scratch, isn't that the sort of person you'd want in charge of making things? Aren't *they* the people we should support?
Ellen
Debate more complex than simply choice of OS... (Score:3, Interesting)
This isn't simply an OS jihad. Where Linux == Good and Windows == Bad. Making business (cause that's what a lot of government is) decisions based on software "religion" is stupid and misguided.
The points that the congressman from Peru (I forget his name) made about using open source software were some of the most valid, and well reasoned ones I have heard in a long time. But - clearly his argument progresses beyond simple selection of the operating system to the systems used to create, maintain, and access the data used to run a govenment.
Here in the USA - govenment money is used to fund all sorts of private development. Look at defense research. Boeing, and all those guys are _private_ companies that acquire patents on inventions that were paid for with government monies. They then sell finished product to the govenment, further profitting from this relationship. As a tax payer you might be more than a little outraged by this.
So the question you have to ask yourself is: Do you want your government funding the r&d of proprietary software? That's one aspect of this debate.
Another question is: Do you want your government using proprietary software? If they are, then it has a cost over time in licensing fees. It also leads to the following -
Do you want your government to store data files in a proprietary format whose layout is held by some private company? (it's one thing if the gov. develops it's own data formats and properly documents them, it's a whole nother game when the format is externally owned).
Probably, in many cases your answer is "NO" to all three of these questions. But, then you have to ask yourself whether or not there is a serious open source, free software alternative to some of the commercial offerings. In many cases, yes. But, in just as many, no.
Other questions that come to mind are: Would you really want your government systems run off of current open source/free software systems? Being fair, you have to consider the bugs in those systems (beyond the simple anecdotal evidence) - and the "spit and polish" of those systems.
Do you really want your government in the "software" business? Maybe, maybe not. There's a reason so many governments sub-contract work out to professionals and specialists. Sure, the gov. usually attaches all sorts of conditions (specs and requirements) so that the end product is well documented - but private companies do the work. Given how effective government is at some tasks, I'm not sure I want them writing software!
...Food for thought...
Re:All I care about is the research (Score:5, Interesting)
BSD and Proprietary licences ensure works or derivatives BECOME or STAY UNFREE.
Using public money to create works or derivatives that become or stay unfree is ridiculous.
There is no place for BSD or any other Proprietary licencing scheme where MY MONEY is concerned.
It really pisses me off to pay for something twice. Once by taxation for the reasearch to create a resource and again for that same resource at retail.
Fucking corperate welfare. Drugs. Software. Commercial Space Launch. Alternative Energy. Agribusiness. Cheap Oil Royalties. Commercial Use highways.
Microsoft uses the BSD TCP/IP stack for free, then sells it to us. Any Taxpayer sponsored research should NEVER use a BSD style licence. If a corporation benefits from my tax dollars, They should not be able to sell the fruits of that research back to me for profit.
Thailand (Score:4, Interesting)
"Thailand:
A government-subsidized technology development group, known as the National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre, or Nactec, announced in April that it has developed its own package of open source software for use o n government desktop computers and servers. Linux-SIS (School Internet Server) for servers and Linux TLE (Thai Linux Extension) for desktops are based on the version of the Linux operating system from Red Hat Inc, a Raleigh, North Carolina, software company. Nactec has made the software freely available to government groups and small businesses. The project , government officials said, aims to narrow the gap between pirated software and legal software use, and promote local business development."
I submitted a story on this a while back, so I will elaborate here. The agency is actually NECTEC (not Nactec), and they have developed a Thai language distro. Thai is problematic because of it's eight bit characters, and vowels that can appear in front, behind, above, or below the consonant. Modifying the many English 7 bit centric apps in RH to work with Thai was no small feat. They also have a web page devoted to training ex-windows users. At this point, it is incomplete.
This is an attempt to curb the estimated 93% piracy rate in the country. It is causing all kinds of problems with the WTO. This distro has been featured front page in four major computer magazines in the last three months. The general review by all the magazines was that it is good, but shouldn't replace Windows. In a primary example of the poor quality of the reviews, the reviewers were unable to mount their windows partition or change the encoding on a web page in konqueror. I am using this distro right now, but have used the apt-get utility which comes pre-installed to dist-upgrade to RH7.3, and everything still works.
Tangentially, Sun has released an all Thai version of open office, called Pladao ("Star Fish") for free, and it is being widely accepted by the mainstream media because it runs on Windows. Solaris and Linux versions are also available. I use this program regularly along with OO 1.0.0 (why the extra 0?) on my machine. It is being written of and reviewed as open source, even though no source is available, so I am confused. I suspect people are confusing OS with "free to use."
Thailand is committed to OS, and has computer standard for OS retail machines and advocacy programs in place. The government wants to stop sending so much of its meager supply of cash to the west.
Re:Denmark! (Score:2, Interesting)
But their are things that Microsoft will do for your home computer that Linux won't, and it's mostly software types of things, their is a lot more software for your Microsoft machine then for a Red Hat Macjine, so you need to really think about what you want the machine to do for yo.