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!"
20%? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:20%? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:20%? (Score:3, Interesting)
If open source / open standards gained a solid 1/5 market share and was able to hold it, then the monopoly would be broken and no one company alone could dictate closed "standards". I would count this as a victory (alas, it hasn't happened yet in the area of office software). Especially because I'm sure that after this a landslide would occur, because the popularity of Office is founded mainly on its mono
Re:20%? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:20%? (Score:2)
That's assuming that the requirements are fixed and the problem is how to fill them. If the current technology were second-generation mainframes, I can assure you that anyone's idea of requirements would be cut to pieces. What will hap
Re:20%? (Score:3, Interesting)
Something similar could happen as FOSS
You don't know what you are talking about. (Score:4, Interesting)
One of the advisors for this project was a certain Bill Gates. That they are turning around like this has a huge impact since they must be ignoring "advice" (i.e. FUD) from Gates whose opinions just 5 years ago were regarded as gospel.
This my friend, is BIG news in Malaysia for sure, one of the biggest exporters of computer related stuff in the world.
Re:20%? (Score:2)
funding? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:funding? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:funding? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:funding? (Score:2)
Where I work we're adopting OSS in a number of areas. Where we make changes to the code (e.g. porting to a new platform, RDBMS &c) we contribute that back to the project. In terms of funding I'm not aware of any direct donations but we do by support from organisations who are involved in the development where possible so we do indirectly contribute that way.
Stephen
Re:funding? (Score:2)
About Arthur (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:About Arthur (Score:5, Informative)
Their sales come from corporate and other large-scale users, like my school and my father's offices. My school paid over RM185,000 (RM3.80 = US$1.00 exactly, due to pegging) in licensing fees this year.
Re:About Arthur (Score:2)
Re:About Arthur (Score:5, Interesting)
Not sure when you were here, but I don't know of any malls where you can't buy legit software (okay, at Plaza Imbi, you have to look hard).
At the big computer malls (an Asian phenomenon not seen in North America, and no, Fry's ain't shit in comparison) in Malaysia there will usually be a couple dozen very in-your-face places selling a few hundred different packages for a flat rate of RM5 (US$1.25) per CD (which results in the funny situation that Linux costs more than Windows). Some of them are set up on tables in the halls but many of them are clearly leaseholders with proper shops. Occasionally there will be a "legit" side-business (selling mobile phone accessories or something) but usually they don't even bother.
Side-by-side with them are respectable shops selling shrink-wrap software. I do see them making sales, so some people clearly either buy the moral argument, or they see a value in getting the manuals and support. The margins on the pirate CDs must be tiny, so at the end of the day the legit vendors may still be more profitable.
Yesterday up on the 3rd floor in Low Yat Plaza (where I was buying a USB hub, thank you very much), right alongside the pirate stalls, I saw a 1.5-meter-tall stand-up display in the corridor advertising the benefits of purchasing legal Microsoft software. So obviously someone's been through there.
On the main topic of this article, I must say it takes me quite by surprise, because I really don't see much Linux at all in Malaysia compared to neighboring countries (including equally piracy-agnostic Thailand). Maybe Bill Gates committed some egregious cultural faux pas while he was here last week (Offered the PM's wife a swig of brandy? Used his turn signal?).
Bill's Egregious Faux Pas... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:About Arthur (Score:3, Informative)
I have also purchased many Linux CDs at IT malls like Panthip Plaza (though I prefer Zeer Rangsit) sitting right
Re:About Arthur (Score:2)
There've been a few amendments (e.g. 1997) but I believe the "copy for private and domestic use" = not infringing clause still remains.
The lack of linux in M'sia? AFAIK buying a CD with Linux software on it costs more than buying a CD with MS software on it from the local unauthorized distributors.
I heard that an MS Malaysia boss once scolded his underlings for coming down hard (e.g. legal action etc) on companies using illegal copies of MS software. The boss basically
Re:About Arthur (Score:2)
And what would those be?
Re:About Arthur (Score:3, Insightful)
You're leaving out a lot of costs. They a
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.
Re:About Arthur (Score:2)
So the seller is breaking the law, but the buyer often isn't
Anyway the authorities should have higher priority stuff to clamp down on than copyright infringements. Sure they do take action from time to time. But bigger problems would be: murder, violent crimes, theft etc.
malaymoz (Score:4, Funny)
pretty much a no brainer (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm suprised to see a government in a developing nation pass up on the potentially huge amount of money that Microsoft would willing pump into there universities.
xoduszero [xoduszero.biz]
Re:pretty much a no brainer (Score:2, Funny)
And after they graduate, they continue to use Microsoft products for free! omg piracy lol!
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:pretty much a no brainer (Score:2)
a) For the embedded stuff, big in Taiwan, MS is nowhere - it's all Linux.
b) Java is making some minor inroads. I used to be channel sales director for a Canadian software company selling Java tools, and fought hard against MS tools - am now being told by my Japanese ex-customers that I was right to insist patience would pay off with Java.
c) Malaysia is rather rabidly anti-western and anti-American. This would not hap
Re:pretty much a no brainer (Score:5, Informative)
Malaysia is no such thing. Some scraps of circumstantial evidence:
You are probably confusing an entire country with a few zany speeches by former Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir.
It's come close to happening in a lot of western countries like, say, Germany.
Open source is benefiting from anti-US sentiments (Score:5, Interesting)
Cost is not the only criterion here. It is a sad truth that countries which suspect/fear that the US will cut off their access to technology by issuing a Department of Commerce export notification are increasingly turning to Open Source as a viable option that circumvents real or prophesized export controls.
Does that make Open Source unpatriotic? If it is, who is culpable? Is Joe Coder a traitor because he fixed a header file macro in an Open Source project which helps to bypass US laws? Will Ashkroft send his goons to nab Joe? What if Joe lives in Switzerland or New Zealand? Will Ashkroft still send his goons anyway?
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:Open source is benefiting from anti-US sentimen (Score:2)
Re:Open source is benefiting from anti-US sentimen (Score:2)
Re:Open source is benefiting from anti-US sentimen (Score:3, Interesting)
As media solutions fall into the hands of the general populace, we can expect the "fundamental" notion of individual countries to continue to erode. There will be a strong fight against this trend, but the fact of the matter remains: t
Re:Open source is benefiting from anti-US sentimen (Score:2)
The multi-nationals are threatening to replace the sovereignty of nations within their own boundaries. This is something that FreeSoftware not only wouldn't, but couldn't do. FreeSoftware doesn't have the capability of corrupting the legislatures, and doesn't own any armies. Corporations do both.
To play it like the big boys... (Score:2)
I cam't see how the common man can have a problem exporting technology (OSS) before an export ban is issued. Now if there IS an export ban in place already, AND you're aware that yout ptoducts are being used in banned countries, it MAY start to become an issue.
However, since a country already on that list probably won't care much about piracy anyway, you have to look at the reality of it. I understand export bans on supercomputers, weapon guidance and cont
Re:To play it like the big boys... (Score:2)
export bans on supercomputers, weapon guidance and control systems, advanced communication systems etc.
This would be just as ineffective as the earlier crypto ban. Many countries in europe and asia have darn good scientists and engineers too. It isn't that hard for them to manufacture those things (and they actually do already have quite competitive homegrown solutions).
I seriously doubt the Department of Commerce will bother if their PCs are running Linux or a pirated Windows
They will. All it tak
Re:Open source is benefiting from anti-US sentimen (Score:2, Informative)
Even good Americans don't use Internet Explorer [yahoo.com]!
Re:Open source is benefiting from anti-US sentimen (Score:2)
For the record and as a sensor how many Fox News fans are moderators now
Open source unpatriotic? (Score:2, Interesting)
The poster asks:
Does that make Open Source unpatriotic?
In large part, that depends on your definition of patrriotism.
The US was born from and originally dedicated to rebellion against undue authority. Now, on a global basis, the US government attempts (somewhat successfully) to BE the undue authority. This course of action is not in the interests of the typical American, so there's a compelling case that anything frustrating those aims of the US government is, in fact, far more profoundly and genuine
Re:Open source is benefiting from anti-US sentimen (Score:2)
I don't like what the US government is doing, and I see OSS as a way to reduce your government's power. Spending $1 on a blank CD and 1 hour of my time can worsen your country's trade balance by a few hundred dollars, and that looks like an effective way of raising the costs to the Empire. (The worse the balance of trade, the more dicey it is to keep borrowing from countries that may not approve of your policies).
This is good for Open source, good for the world,
I wonder.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I wonder.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I wonder.... (Score:2)
More to the point, that reminds me of an ephitet my Dad uses often: "You can't stop progress." This would be his reaction to the way things used to be changing. Now it's MS and the xxAAs who are going to see a little progress. Dad was right though. Money, lawyers and lobbying can slow down progress but they won't stop it.
That is why the antics of MS and xxAAs
Re:I wonder.... (Score:2)
Linux is going to change in mainstream (Score:2, Interesting)
When Linux and other Free (and Open Source) software becomes mainstream, it will be swamped by capitalists using and abusing it. The people who understand and believe in Free Software will be a minority. Even the majority of people contributing code to the Linux kernel will have different motivations from what we're used to.
Eventually, this will lead to code forks. The mainstream folks will be disatisfied that their wi
Re:Linux is going to change in mainstream (Score:2)
That's the advantage of code forks.
That's the way evolution works. The latest fad does not come from the previous fad. It comes from where the previous fad came from.
The latest fad may no
Re:I wonder.... (Score:3, Informative)
What are you talking about? Companies like Red Hat, SuSE, Caldera, and IBM have been employing F/OSS coders for years. RH employed Alan Cox to continue work on the kernel. SuSE employed quite a few coders who were working on various projects (like ALSA). It doesn't seem to have created any sort of jealousy or resentment amongst the other coders. We all manage to get by. Some of us are employed, some aren't. And the really good/lucky ones get employed to continue working on what we are interested in.
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:Good for them, good for us. (Score:2)
And they will. They may also donate money to projects, to get them to develop features that are desired. That's fair. But it's more important that they start their own projects and donate the code.
It has to be said... (Score:4, Funny)
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.
Re:Able to run? (Score:3, Interesting)
tosh (Score:2)
Linux on POWER [ibm.com]
Re:Able to run? (Score:2)
What's wrong with Sony Vaio laptops? They may not be the best choice for servers, but mine runs GNU/Linux flawlessly.
Nice twist here, AFTER gates visit (Score:5, Interesting)
Poor MS. Why if this continues they may actually have to concentrate on selling a good product rather then scare the customer into staying with them. I am crying for all the MS coders who will loose their jobs, ignore the hysterical laughter that is just my way of showing grief. Really.
Anyone know the travelling plans of IBM or Novell or Sun or HP?
Re:Nice twist here, AFTER gates visit (Score:2)
This happens after a visit and an alarmist speech AND it hasn't worked at all.
Why do you assume that a mere speech will change things? Don't forget that we're talking politics (and business) here! Perhaps MSFT's "buying power" with malaysian government officials wasn't up to par this time?
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:Kill Jobs? Malasians don't write software (Score:2)
Re:Kill Jobs? Malasians don't write software (Score:2)
In the long run restrictions tend to hurt more than they help, and often achieve the opposite (like rent control or job protection).
The "free" market is a myth. Every market has a huge number of written and unwritten rules discouraging negative competitive behaviour (anti-trust, fraud, truth in advertising, stock manipulation, copyright law etc.) and allowing positive competitive behaviour (improvement in product, lowering of price etc.). Law that stops tax payer money from being used inefficiently is a
Re:Kill Jobs? Malasians don't write software (Score:2)
So you are for restrictions keeping people or corperations from getting too rich or sucessful?
To the extent that it distorts the political and democratic process, yes. I see no reason why Bill Gates and the like should have more say in the political process than I do. This is the reality but that doesn't mean it's okay. This is particularly bad with the media cartels. Any view which is incompatible with the television license owners conservative, capitalist views pretty much doesn't exist in the popular
Malaysia is OSS free-loader (Score:2, Informative)
Even if this OSA restriction didn't exist, the local IT vendors in Malaysia would never want the code they wrote to be under any form of scrutiny as their projects are usually failures that still result in big payouts for them.
Don't count on seeing a single contribution from Malaysia to the openso
Re:Malaysia is OSS free-loader (Score:2)
I don't care about the next couple of years. I do care about the next couple of decades.
Re:Malaysia is OSS free-loader (Score:2)
It's part of the over-all effort... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:It's part of the over-all effort... (Score:2)
I ended reading your post has been modded up by people like you.
I can't understand you guys... At least you use IRC for trolling
Malaysia CAN'T be called Islamic country. They have hundreds of different communities there. To make it simple, I like chatting on a malaysian populated network, didn't see a single muslim malaysian yet... Also, if I see, I don't think they would like to be called "islamic" country/government.
MS is USA? IMHO they passed that point long ti
" sexually frustrated young men willing to kill (Score:2, Interesting)
Nope. They spoke 'merkin near as I recall.
What you are implying is over simplistic and not exactly what I was saying. I will attempt clarification. They are adopting open source for all the same reasons anyone else is, PLUS, by adopting it, it helps them to get independe
Re:It's part of the over-all effort... (Score:2)
No centralized authority can be trusted. None. Develop systems that don't REQUIRE a central node that has the power to control what the other nodes can do.
OSS kill jobs yes (read more) (Score:2)
Take for example Brazil, even the translation of Windows to brazilian portuguese is made on redmond, why should our government care if those jobs are closed? Then microsoft talks about the local reseller of windows, well, replace windows for another SO and the local retailers will be... THERE, just selling something different.
There is a LOT of jobs emerging around here that won't ex
Re:OSS kill jobs yes (read more) (Score:2)
Fantastic - Microsoft will shut down their Malaysian HQ and Red Hat... oh, sorry, I forgot - they will NOT open their office there because their products are relatively cheaper.
>Take for example Brazil, even the translation of Windows to brazilian portuguese is made on redmond, why should our government care if those jobs are closed?
You are clueless, Sir.
Microsoft's localizat
Re:OSS kill jobs yes (read more) (Score:2)
Re:OSS kill jobs yes (read more) (Score:2)
>huge asian countries are/will be rolling their own flavor of Linux
Couple of months ago Slashdot had an article about a guy who created a Web site that gives maps with locations of Linux kernel maintainers (the maps are automatically generated based on credits from source code).
Well, the bad news is that contribution of China and India is zero (0).
They're quite far from creating anything
Re:OSS kill jobs yes (read more) (Score:2)
China is still in the early days with Red Flag Linux. In the early days, France didn't have Mandrake, either. Mandrake was just a rip-off of Red Hat. Well, it was. Back around Red Hat 4.x. Development diverged, and Mandrake started providing its own contributions.
Things don't happen overnight.
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.
Zoolander (Score:2)
Open Source in Malaysia (Score:2, Interesting)
Our company is heavily adopting open source software as I believe many others are, we are using SAMBA 3.x as our PDC/File Server, FreeBSD as our Firewall/NAT/Router/Traffic Shaper, Another *nix machine in the DMZ as Tomcat/mail server, OpenOffice.org as the productivity suite for the Windows machine, Thunde
Re:Um. It did kill jobs. (Score:3, Interesting)
You skipped basic economics in school, didn't you?
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:Um. It did kill jobs. (Score:2)
Talk about a weak argument. Are you equally pissed that the government purchases tanks and jets and you can't use either?
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:Um. It did kill jobs. (Score:5, Interesting)
If the work is useful, it is unique and/or custom. And open source offers more opportunities for customization than closed-source anyway.
It seems like you are arguing in favor of specialized welfare programs for computer programmers who don't otherwise offer any value to the market.
Otherwise there's no possible reason to write the same things over and over and over again. It's like having every agency in the government outsource their own national census.
Re:Um. It did kill jobs. (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's let the industries based on re-coding the same old proprietary systems die so that new industries that can push the frontiers of computer science may be born. So long as the majority of the competent computer scientists and engineers in the world are working on new versions of Oracle, Windows, Solaris, Office, proprietary government procurement software, etc.., those new frontiers are just a dream!
Personally, I say good riddance.
Right ON! (Score:3, Interesting)
Personally, I strongly agree with you.
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.
s/perscribe/prescribe/ (Score:3, Funny)
Re:s/perscribe/prescribe/ (Score:3, Funny)
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
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.
you got it (Score:2, Informative)
That's it in a nutshell. Closed source efforts like from MS are exactly like the music industry wanting to charge full price for extremely cheap to almost free (to them) copies, forever and ever, and to mandate it by law and coercion. It is unsustainable foolishness. People in the rest of the world and in the rest of the jobs out there get paid by producing new work, not by re selling the
Re:math? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:math? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:math? (Score:2)
They're percentages of three different quantities - new servers, office infrastructure, and school computer labs. Of course they don't add up to 100%.
Re:This is great! (Score:5, Funny)
What success? And how old is that article? 5 years?
Last I heard they had decided it was going to be the biotechnology supercorridor instead, as soon as they could come up with a way to keep the same acronym so they wouldn't have to change the signs. Welcome to Biojaya, garden city. Don't eat the hyperintelligent coconuts; we need them to do our urban planning.
And three years from now it will be the Fuel Cell Supercorridor, or whatever the fad du jour is.
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
Re:Glad to know OSS won on better products (Score:2)
Re:Glad to know OSS won on better products (Score:2)
Consider that it's in the best interest of the malaysian government to keep as much of the cost in-house as possible. If they have to pay some malaysian company to train more malaysians how to use the new systems, then the costs remain in the country and will eventually come back to them in taxes anyway.. Giving away free or subsidised training to their own people is only in the best interest of the country as a whole. How
Re:Glad to know OSS won on better products (Score:2)
This is a pretty major benefit, especially on a large scale and in the long term.
It also allows an organization to fix bugs even if a vendor goes out of business.
It's also just plain more economically efficient.
These are major pragmatic reasons to use open-source software. Even if a package is slightly less featureful, the fact that it can be steadily improved and there is no lock-in to it is a significant draw.
Re:Glad to know OSS won on better products (Score:5, Informative)
And if you read the article, you would see that the Malaysian government has stated:
If open-source software is better they will use it; if proprietary software is better, they will use it; if there is little to choose between them, they will prefer open-source because of all the other (economic and strategic) advantages that this brings.