Malaysian Government Prefers Open Code 210
Suresh Gnasegarah writes "All Malaysian government technology procurement will now have a preference for open source software (OSS), under the Malaysian Public Sector Open Source Software Masterplan. The masterplan's near-term targets includes: 60% of all new servers able to run OSS operating systems, 30% of office infrastructure -- like e-mail, DNS, proxy servers -- on OSS, and 20% of school computer labs to have OSS applications such as productivity suites installed. Looks like old Bill's scare tactic that OSS software kills jobs didn't quite work. Another victory for the open source software movement!"
funding? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:math? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:20%? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Open source is benefiting from anti-US sentimen (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that countries suspect or fear the US may be sad. Their ability to do something to reduce their exposure isn't.
Does that make Open Source unpatriotic?
If countries are preferring open source software as a way of securing themselves from manipulation from other countries they see as potentially hostile then that would make open source either patriotic or (more accurately) neutral but able to be used in a patriotic way. How could that possibly be "unpatriotic"?
Re:Um. It did kill jobs. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's nice that they're using OSS but pretending it's not going to result in less jobs is silly.
I pay my government to pay you for the software you write. Since the government works for me[0], why in the hell should they be allowed to pay people to write something I can't have access to?
This is a rather short-sighted argument. There's still a need for specialty software, but there is *NO NEED* to continuously reproduce the same stuff in order to preserve your job or to keep it from the people who paid for it.
Write something that doesn't already exist, let the rest of us (and other departments) benefit from it, and move on. Don't pretend like you can't work unless you're reproducing perfectly good software every day.
I mean, honestly, I can't believe you're justifying having the government *not* use OSS because it means you don't get to produce a clone of some OSS project and make money off of it. It's this mentality that keeps our government slow and expensive.
Re:Glad to know OSS won on better products (Score:1, Insightful)
No. The Malaysian Government is a purchaser of software, and it's their choice what they buy. Choice hasn't been taken away, as evidenced by the rather obvious fact that they're are making a choice.
Not because one is open source, vs. closed source, that shouldn't matter, if the people of the government are paying taxes, it should go to the best product that does the job, for the lowest TCO.
Crap. I don't know how democratic or otherwise Malyasia is, but as a generalisation (which is how you presented it) your claim is clearly wrong. Governments do not exist solely to save money. If they did then the solution would be to use no software and to do nothing. They spend money to achieve purposes.
If the Malaysian government sees its objectives as being furthered through greater use of open source software then saying "but the cheapest way must be best because well becuase it just has to be, okay?" is stupid.
Re:I wonder.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Software sold to businesses mostly, not end users (Score:5, Insightful)
For one thing, I put it to you that it is actually more expensive for a Malaysian to live in Malaysia, than an American to live in the U.S.
(well, okay, not universally true, but let's take the midwest as an example)
The average starting salary for an *US-trained* Malaysian engineer in Malaysia is about RM18,000 before deductions (US$4,736). In the U.S., an engineer starts at around US$35,000.
Basic necessities cost about the same, ringgit-to-dollar.
Cost of a Pontiac Sunfire is $10,000 (28% of U.S. Salary)
Cost of the cheapest brand-new car in Malaysia is RM32,000 (170% of Malaysian salary).
Cost of average U.S. house (this is really variable though) is US$200,000 (570% of U.S. Salary)
Cost of Malaysian house is RM180,000 (1000% of Malaysian Salary)
With all this in mind, the price of Microsoft Office Standard is US$348 (1% of U.S. Salary).
In Malaysia, it is RM1300 (7% of Malaysian Salary).
As you can see, it is understandable that a large portion of the Malaysian population cannot afford to buy original software. They're too busy paying their loans etc.
Selling software in Malaysia is mostly a corporate affair -- businesses and government are huge clients. (They have to buy original, otherwise the BSA swoops down on them). Going open-source will definitely make an impact.... the government is one of the biggest buyers of software.
End-users don't buy that much original software to start with. So they don't really figure in the equation.
Good for them, good for us. (Score:2, Insightful)
It is good for OS users because, as even smaller governments start catching on, citizens *may* see that their country is using such products for such a low...."free"....cost, cafes and whatnot will switch.
Basically a chain-reaction.
Re:Um. It did kill jobs. (Score:5, Insightful)
You're wrong. We're talking basic economics wrong.
Let's assume that your job isn't make-work (like, oh, re-coding an old VMS system to use Visual Basic just because.)
If you're writing software that can be done with OSS software--which isn't by any means everything--then you might be out of a job if the government uses the OSS instead. But you would be in the same boat if some off-the-shelf software was used instead.
(My mother works writing custom software for the gov't--and even if they went all-OSS instsead of just partly-OSS, the job that they do wouldn't go away because it's so specific.)
Let's say that your job CAN be replaced. What this means is that the money that was going to pay your salary & support expenses will go to do something else. Either the government will take on a new project, or they'll cut taxes. Let's assume a tax break, for argument's sake.
When the government cuts taxes, a good portion of the business sector finds that they have more money in their budget. They might use this money to lower their prices, but odds are that among the million-odd businesses in this country, a couple dozen will use the money to start new projects. Which means hiring new people.
The bottom line? Use of OSS might cut YOUR job, or it might cut MS's profits, or it might cut someone else's job--but the total net number and dollar value of jobs likely won't go down.
Arguing "my job will get taken away" makes as little sense now as when it was robots doing assembly work.
Re:pretty much a no brainer (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe locking yourself into MS products is bad in the longer term.
Maybe they think that the local IT industry will be better off if the govt used open source.
Maybe the amount of money that MS gives is not that huge compared to what it would cost to upgrade once longhorn comes out.
Maybe, just maybe, they think it's weird that a business has to give money to governments in order to convince them to use their software. Don't you think that's kind of weird?
Re:Um. It did kill jobs. (Score:4, Insightful)
The govt is just another user of the OSS project. Did you pay to use mozilla? Chances are the govt will probably contribute some money towards continued development for the software they use which is better then 99% of the other users who don't pay anything at all.
"How many people would the government have hired to build the projects if OSS alternatives didn't exist?"
None. They would have bought something.
"The US government pays businesses a ton of money to write software. I currently work with such a company. If the US government decided to use all Open Source a lot of people would be out of work."
Are you writing a web browser? An office suite? A general purpose operating system? An email client?. Probably not. The software the govt pays to write is very specific to their needs.
BTW. Last I checked nobody was entitled to a job. If your customer can get a product thats equal to or better then yours for less money they owe it to taxpayers to do so.
"The Malaysian government choosing to use Open Source has just reduced the amount of money that will go to businesses and therefore employees. Which means lost jobs and/or fewer people being hired on"
Nah. It just means more money will stay malasia rather then go to redmond. Every cent spent on MS software is one less cent circulating in your own country helping your own economy.
"I don't see how governments "wasting" money on paying people to write software or do any other job is a bad thing. "
That's because you are suckling on the momma sows teat. All that taxpayer money pouring into your company and your pocket is wonderful for you but it sucks for me and every other tax payer.
"The government should be more than happy to spend money on commercial software if it suits their needs."
Not if there is a lower cost or free alternative.
"It's nice that they're using OSS but pretending it's not going to result in less jobs is silly."
Your analytic skills need some fine tuning. Unless the govt was actually paying for development of office software and web browsers nobody is going to lose their jobs.
Re:Um. It did kill jobs. (Score:5, Insightful)
And therefore would be free to work on other, non-governmental things. It would allow more intelligent people to do more intelligent things.
If the only thing you're capable of is porting the bureaucratic red tape to computer, then you have no future. Why waste society's resources on creating useless jobs, when these people could actually be doing beneficial things, and yet still make a living?
I perscribe the following to clear this up:
Review (or learn) basic macroeconomics; and read the works of both John Maynard Keynes and Milton Friedman, or of those inspiring other schools of economics, as you see fit.
Oh, and by the way, get your syntax right: "fewer jobs," not "less jobs." "Fewer" takes a countable noun, and "less" takes an uncountable noun.
Re:Um. It did kill jobs. (Score:2, Insightful)
If you seriously think this is a valid argument then a solution would be for the US govenrment to pay half those people to dig holes in the ground and the other half to fill them in again. This would be neither more nor less productive than your current plan that they hire people to write software that they could otherwise have got for free.
(Before soemeone buts in with the real world that the government would need to pay people to write, amend, support open source software, please note that this would in itself contradict the premises of the post to which I was replying).
Able to run? (Score:2, Insightful)
What does this mean exactly? Haven't seen many servers that aren't capable of running OSS operating systems. Hope they're going for something more applicable to the job than a Sony Vaio laptop.
Kill Jobs? Malasians don't write software (Score:3, Insightful)
However this might later lead to them chosing the "wrong" tool, when a more appropriate non-OSS tool exists.
In the long run restrictions tend to hurt more than they help, and often achieve the opposite (like rent control or job protection).
Simple economics really.
Re:20%? (Score:3, Insightful)
Preference is part and parcel of capitalism. (Score:1, Insightful)
Software is no different in a market-based economy. And a government is merely a large customer expressing a preference. Bully for Malaysia for expressing their choice and codifying it for all to see. If one wishes to sell software to Malaysia, one had best be superior and open source.
Just as if one wishes to sell licorice to me, one had best be Panda.
Re:Glad to know OSS won on better products (Score:3, Insightful)
In the case of the gov't, I think there's a stronger factor at play: Don't be a slave to a company. The biggest danger I see with using Word (for example...) at gov't facilities is that MS is a broken file format away from forced upgrades. Granted, this hasn't happened in years. If you use Office 97 today, you're not in a world of hurt with 2000 users. (Note: That's as high as I went, I don't know if O2k3 broke 97 compatibility or not.) But I do remember back in the Office 95 days the transition to 97 was horrible. Everybody had to upgrade at once or the stragglers were instantly left out. The advantage of going Open Source here is that they're not totally tied to one vendor. I'm over dramatizing the situation a bit, but it's not a risk I'd want a gov't to take.
So what exactly is my rebuttal? Well I'm not totllay against what you're saying. I completely agree that they should choose based on what their requiremenets are. I just wanted to add the 'think of the future' variable in there. In which case, some compromise is okay.
Re:About Arthur (Score:3, Insightful)
You're leaving out a lot of costs. They are paying as much rent as the equally-sized legit store next door, and they have as many staff. These costs spread pretty thick on a retail unit price of $1.25.
Bill's Egregious Faux Pas... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Um. It did kill jobs. (Score:3, Insightful)
Probably none. The article talks about pretty standard software: office apps, DNS servers, operating systems, etc. If they didn't go Open Source, they'd have just bought it from Microsoft.
That's not really "hiring programmers" because the people who wrote Word and Windows XP have already been paid. They don't get paid more if a government buys a copy.
I'm sure they'll spend the money on something else. They're not going to just put all the money they save into a big pile and light it on fire.
I don't think Microsoft is going to fire anyone because of this. (Maybe someone in marketing or PR will be fired for allowing this to happen, but that's different.)
Conflicting interests (Score:4, Insightful)
Everybody's right. The issue is that costs and benefits are distributed unevenly.
"[XYZ] will eliminate jobs."
Answer: "[XYZ] will eliminate your jobs, but will drastically reduce our costs and benefit society as a whole."
[XYZ] is:
That's not a multiple choice question. There are winners and losers in many technological trends. The Luddites were right, in a way: they were losing their jobs, and someone else -- not them -- benefitted. It was a simple win-lose scenario, resolved in the case of the Luddites by mass hangings and other forms of repression.
There is no simple "solution" for the losers of any such trend. Innovation is usually the answer, except that it is a long term solution to a short term problem, meaning losers will continue to lose for a while. Career change is not easy: financial barriers exist where class barriers did earlier. Have you priced a college education lately? I guess the real answer is to grin and bear it.
Re:" sexually frustrated young men willing to kill (Score:1, Insightful)
I've read a lot on this topic since 9/11 and everything I've learned points to this 1 fact: Izlam turns people into orcs. Once you become a Muzlim, instead of focusing on your own life and achievements like any well-adjusted human being you instead start fantasizing about ancient Arab glory and how proud and satisfied you'd feel if Izlam ran the world. Eventually the difference between this fantasy and reality provokes immense feelings of "humiliation", and the Muzlim ends up hating and wishing to destroy anything he cannot control and enslave.
You can attempt to blame America as much as you want for this, but even with your Michael Moore-like command of the facts you still do not explain why Indian Hindus, African animists, and Southeat Asian Buddhists all have the same problems as America with Muzlims.