hi,
..this is a long one, I have tried to logical but critical. ..
Critique of the points in the Bill
==================================
After reading thru the contents of the bill, it seems to be thrown together
without deep thought or sufficient discussion. The objective of setting up
such a board seems to be primarily to register parties so that they can be
eligible to handle CNII Projects. The definition of CNII itself is very
vague and dubious. For this to stand up to scrutiny of law, the definition
has to be very clear, with precise definitions and exclusions, with such a
definition amounting to pages, not just ONE SENTENCE! And since this bill
hinges on the definition of NCII, and since this definition is not clear,
then this bill has little relevance!
The justification for the Bill also display a lack of inputs from those
actually practicing n the industry. The fact is that the technology changes
so fast, and its adoption can be equally fast, and attempt to
certify/regulate it via conventional bureaucratic means is impractical,
either that or it will lead to stifling of knowledge and innovation,
leaving Malaysia's behind in the globally competitive field of IT!
Furthermore it will stifle innovation. This is mostly due the purely
IP-based nature of the industry, where ideas and knowledge are the real
capital, not goods, machinery and equipment (re: Scenario below)
Lastly it is not quite clear what the role of the Board that is suppose to
be setup IS! Is it (just) going to be a registry for parties wanting to bid
for CNII jobs, or is it trying to be a professional body, like the MMA (for
doctors), Bar Council (for lawyers) etc... It seems like it is trying to be
a bit of both!
As a professional body, the professionals that are involved should have
more say; ie: the Board should not be ALL APPOINTEES but rather IT
Professionals voted in by their peers. Its should also play a more
strategic and perhaps even operational role to improve the standards and
business opportunities of its members through business development
activities and interaction with other like professional bodies overseas.
If its just a registry, there there is no need to set up a board, just let
a government department (MOSTI?) handle it, much like the registry for
bumiputra companies bidding for government projects handled by the
Treasury. Let the funds that would go towards supporting such a board be
put to actual use in encouraging innovation in IT (see 7. below)
Scenario: fictitious but very possible
-------------------------------------
Google invents a new programming language that leverages off it cloud
infrastructure, and this language makes it highly productive to develop new
applications that utilises very large databases. And they release this as
Open Source.
Overnight, a Malaysian programmer with the interest and underlying skills,
can immediately download the software, access the documentation and start
learning and experimenting with it. Within 2 weeks, he has gained
sufficient proficiency with it and starts developing an application with
it. Within 2-3 months he may have a prototype application running,
demonstrating very viable and unique capabilities.
Suddenly a CNII Project puts up a tender, say for Public Health, where his
project has relevance (a good example would be to develop a National
Database for every citizen's Health Record, such a project has been
suggested the 'Lifelong Health Record' but never actualised). This
programmer CANNOT participate because:
i he personally may not be registered
ii the software that he uses and the skills he has developed
are not certifiable, its too NEW, and no one else in Malaysia has
the capability to do so.
So he gives up in frustration, takes his application to Silicon Valley,
where investors welcome him with open arms, within 32 months his company
with 100 staff goes public...
Here, the programmer has taken a new technology, further innovated on it an
created a new commercial product/service and it ended up overseas. Malaysia
suffers another hit from self-inflicted "Brain Drain".
The above scenario is HIGHLY UNLIKELLY happen in another industry, why?
Lets use another story from the aspect of the mechanical engineering
industry, suppose someone somewhere invents a new type of internal
combustion engine, that is 3 times more economical than the standard
engine, such that a engine the size of a 2 shoeboxes can drive a standard
car!
Firstly, no Malaysian can copy its design, it would be very secretive and
protected by many patents. In contrast, software has the concept of OPEN
SOURCE which is quite unique to the IT industry!
Even if one can obtain the rights to manufacture the engine, the cost of
building a manufacturing plant is huge, and you will still have to pay
royalties to the owner of the patents!
Hence no local innovation or even benefit could be achieved.
Hence there is strong argument for the IT industry to be handled
differently because the nature of skills, knowledge and ability changes so
fast as to make certification or attempts to qualify them difficult,
especially by those outside the industry!
Specific cretique on parts of the Bill
---------------------------------------
(the numbers refer to sections of the Bill)
1. Part II, 4,2
"...each member who shall be Malaysian citizens appointed by the
Minister..."
Board are appointees, NOT elected! They may not be peer reviewed.
Who is the Board accountable to?
How transparent is the appointment and operations of the board?
(especially with the Secrecy clause below)
2. Part 5, 1 & 2
"Talks about the 'common seal' of the board, used to authenticate,
authorize documents issued b the board."
This is somewhat feudal, and although legalities may require such a
seal,
why is a 'professional computing body' not using or promoting digital
signatures?
How is our government and society to progress towards the digital age
if the Board itself does not lead by example?
This points to a glaring weakness of te whole exercise, and show up the
deficiency in knowledge of the decision makers who are to guide/protect us
in the digital age.
This begs the question; if the formulators of the Bill and those
practicing members of the Board are up to date with technology?!
3. Part 7, 1 Revocation of appointment
...the minister shall, at any time, revoke the appointment of any
member of the Board.
The Minister/Government has total power... the board is subject to the
political wills of the Mister/Ministry/government. And registrees are
subject
to the Board!
4. Part 11, 1 Functions and Power of the Board
"f) provide facilities for the promotion of learning and education and
to hold or cause to be held professional development programmes..."
The Board decides on training and hence the technology direction of the
proffession? Will this be subjected to vested interests, ie: commercial
Vendors who cultivate a strong relationship with the Board, vs less
financially capable Open Source companies?
There is no mention of liaison, cooperation with other similar bodies
in other countries; for the purpose of exchange of knowledge, ideas and
business opportunity.
Aside from f), all of the other functions are bureaucratic and not
strategic or operational.
There is no mention of how it can assist in business/economic
development, such as by encouraging innovation to develop new markets. new
ecomies; or even on how to promote adoption of IT by business or government
sectors. In other words, the Board does nor seem very concerned about
business development for the professional body, an aspect that would be
important for other professional bodies.
g) "...to appoint a council consisting of persons to be determined by
the Board, to conduct examinations and/or assessments, or to cause
examinations and/or assessments to be conducted by an institution or
institutions recognized by the Board..."
The Board conducts exams for the purpose of registration of potential
Members. Unless members of the board are qualified in all fields of
speciality, they may not be able to make decisions... e.g. which Open
Source certification to recognize? Why restrict, accept any internationally
recognized certification!
** field of expertise in IT is too wide! e.g. as a Python programmer,
who examines me, is he/she qualified to evaluate me, are there any
certification for Python? Does that then mean I cannot practice
professionally? or contribute on Government projects?
i) "...persons as may be determined by the Board to advise the
government and the public on matters relating to computing education,
including the certification of such programmes."
Again, is the experience of said members representative of the
industry, and will it be swayed by commercial interests, slaes persons from
vendors being appointed...
5. 34 Restriction on employment of unregistered person to provide
Computing Services.
"No CNII entities or person shall employ a person, sole proprietorship,
partnership or body corporate, other than a Registered Computing
Practitioner or Registered Computing Professional or Registered Computing
Services Provider practice, to perform Computing Services"
This clause has very serious consequences! It allows the Board to then
act as Gate Keepers as to who can participate on major CNII projects!
Also, it creates the complexity of interpreting what consists of a CNNI
Project, who has the authority to define/interprete it as such etc..
Furthermore, the status of registration versus the actual skill-set and
experience of an individual may have little correlation.
6. Obligation of Secrecy
43, 1
"no member of the Board or any of its committees or any employee or
agent of the Board or any person attending any meeting of the Board or any
of its committees, whether during or after his tenure of office or
employment, shall disclose any information obtained by him in the course of
his duties; and.."
So where is the transparency and accountability of the Board? If I as a
professional, whose future is being determined by the Board, then it
7. Funds
45,
Goes on to explain the existence of the Fund, justifying its use: pay
allowances of its members, purchase & hire of equipment, etc...
No where does it mention spending to promote and improve the use of IT,
to highlight, showcase and encourage the adoption of new technology, to
provide liaison between Computing bodies in other (more advanced countries)
to exchange ideas/knowledge and better improve standards of our IT
professionals...
It looks like a (possibly fat?) fund will be used to provide
infrastructure and to maintain a bureaucrats, that would have little impact
on improving the standards and well-being of IT professionals. Those funds
could be better spent on existing programs via MOSTI, Cradle etc... that
would encourage innovation, creation of wealth/jobs and encourage adoption
of IT by all Malaysians.
ICON-DAP, a program run by MDeC, to encourage innovation, software
application development and create new businesses has a budget of RM 6m.
The award package is up to RM 200k max, that means only about 30 applicants
will succeed in their application.
If it costs 6m (I think this is very conservative) to run this Board
and its supporting entourage, would not that money be better spent in the
above program?
On Sat, Dec 10, 2011 at 9:27 PM, Raja Iskandar Shah <[email protected]
> wrote:
> saya sendiri setuju dgn pendapat en. ihsan. apa yg kita perlu buat ialah
> dapatkan seberapa detail penjelasan,
>
> kita perlukan kerjasama. mampu melalui oscc dah banyak bawa faedah dan
> impak. kalau takde oscc, takkan ada mygosscon. tak akan ada oss conference
> di malaysia ini. oscc sendiri adakan program certified training providers /
> oscc product partners.
>
> kita perlukan kerjasama supaya aktiviti komuniti tidak terhalang.
> installfest / penguin masuk kampung / hackfest / etc
>
>
>
> On Sat, Dec 10, 2011 at 5:45 PM, Ihsan Junaidi Ibrahim <
> [email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> The novel idea behind this bill is to enforce more accountability behind
>> any critical public infrastructure engagement which is what we as taxpayers
>> desperately need due to mostly opaque project management and layers of
>> accountability structure that we have now.
>>
>> Having said that I do agree that the present draft raises more questions
>> and issues that what it intend to solve.
>>
>> I believe the bill needs to balance the dynamics of technology industry,
>> encouraging innovation, promoting transparency and accountability.
>>
>> I don't necessarily agree with wholesale scraping of the bill but it is
>> critical to make fundamental changes to the content so that it reduces the
>> questions and eventually strenghten the stakeholders I.e. Public, industry,
>> enterpreneurship etc.
>>
>> I'm sure MOSTI has the resources to do this correctly with the
>> stakeholders being in the picture.
>>
>> ihsan
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Harisfazillah Jamel <[email protected]>
>> Sender: [email protected]
>> Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2011 15:48:32
>> To: <[email protected]>
>> Reply-To: [email protected]
>> Cc: Dunia DIgital<[email protected]>; <[email protected]>
>> Subject: [osdcmy] MOSTI: Stop Computing Professionals Bill 2011 (CPB2011)
>>
>>
>> http://www.change.org/petitions/mosti-stop-computing-professionals-bill-2011-cpb2011
>>
>> MOSTI: Stop Computing Professionals Bill 2011 (CPB2011)
>>
>> Greetings,
>>
>> I just signed the following petition addressed to: MOSTI.
>>
>> ----------------
>> Stop Computing Professionals Bill 2011 (CPB2011)
>>
>> If this Bill becomes and Act, it will hamper the growth and innovation
>> that is coming from the ICT sector. It will increase the cost to all
>> spending in ICT and more importantly, it will encourage "uncertified"
>> ICT experts to look for better opportunities abroad and accelerating
>> the brain drain.
>>
>> Stop this bill and save the ICT sector of Malaysia.
>>
>> ----------------
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>>
>> http://www.change.org/petitions/mosti-stop-computing-professionals-bill-2011-cpb2011
>>
>> Discuss about this here
>>
>> https://www.facebook.com/groups/osdcmalaysia/
>>
>> --
>> To unsubscribe from and detail about this group
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>>
>> OSDC.my Discussion Group In Facebook
>> http://www.facebook.com/groups/osdcmalaysia/
>>
>> Malaysia Open Source Conference 2012
>> MOSC2012 http://portal.mosc.my/
>>
>> --
>> To unsubscribe from and detail about this group
>> http://portal.mosc.my/osdc-my-mailing-list-information
>>
>> OSDC.my Discussion Group In Facebook
>> http://www.facebook.com/groups/osdcmalaysia/
>>
>> Malaysia Open Source Conference 2012
>> MOSC2012 http://portal.mosc.my/
>>
>
> --
> To unsubscribe from and detail about this group
> http://portal.mosc.my/osdc-my-mailing-list-information
>
> OSDC.my Discussion Group In Facebook
> http://www.facebook.com/groups/osdcmalaysia/
>
> Malaysia Open Source Conference 2012
> MOSC2012 http://portal.mosc.my/
>
--
#-------
regds,
Boh Heong, Yap
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