On 7/11/06, Dean Michael Berris <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I personally would think this is a bad idea (forcing the government to adopt open source software) and I will outline my reasons below.
What I consider worse is that we're forced to adopt proprietary software just like what is happening now.
1) Restriction of Trade -- whenever the government becomes biased for or against a certain class or type of any device/service/product/anything of value in the free trade market (like software for instance), you might run into issues like the restriction of trade with government. The bill will be hotly contested, and since cost is an issue that will always come in whenever open source software will be considered for any purpose, you need to remember that people need to make money too -- especially Filipinos.
Government is well within their purview to restrict trade if it considers the subject to be detrimental to society (e.g. drugs). I would argue the point that proprietary closed source software is detrimental to society but not on this thread.
2) Licensing Issues -- please do _not_ restrict the license to the GPL, because there are many other open source licenses out there to which a lot of quality software are released under. The GPL looks good, but it's really bad in so many instances, it doesn't even make sense anymore.
If you're using Linux right now, more that 2/3 of the software installed is GPLed. Linux would not have gotten this far without that GPLed code. What doesn't make sense to me is advocating the open source development model without giving credence to the free software philosophy that empowers it.
Consider using correct terminology -- do _not_ get bulldozed by the Free Software Foundation and the hype surrounding the GPL. Instead, use relaxed terms for general "source-available" and "redistributable-source" software. A good idea is to clearly define
"Open source" is hyped more that "free software". Why? Because its business friendly. "Relaxed" terms do not obligate users to share software or improvements. This defeats the purpose of free software and we will all likely end up with closed source proprietary software if this continues.
The government should also be aware that Open Source is not just Linux -- there are other development projects there that are locally grown that also need the support that Bayanihan Linux is currently enjoying.
?
If the bill is about open source software and open systems adoption in the government agencies, this should be recommendatory and not absolute -- otherwise, it won't be fair for commercial software development firms, as well as the local software development industry.
Agreed. -- RAGE CALLAO Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Site: http://bayanihan.gov.ph Blog: ragecallao.wordpress.com Bayanihan GNU/Linux 4 beta 2 Amor patriae _________________________________________________ Philippine Linux Users' Group (PLUG) Mailing List [email protected] (#PLUG @ irc.free.net.ph) Read the Guidelines: http://linux.org.ph/lists Searchable Archives: http://archives.free.net.ph
