On 7/15/06, Paolo Alexis Falcone <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Sat, 2006-07-15 at 01:22 +0800, Dean Michael Berris wrote:
>
> Yes, these are big plusses. However, the predicament that we are
> currently in -- the government currently using non-open source
> solutions that _already work_ and open source solutions (locally
> grown) that work but not as well as I personally would like -- we need
> to be pragmatic about it.
Choices are abound even with a favoring for FOSS. Currently, there are
some projects that do use FOSS components, although they are licensed
under a proprietary license. There are such projects in place in
different government agencies (I've personally built such in the past,
and currently building one now for another). Using FOSS components
indeed lowers the cost of entry, and it is much more favorable for
government (supposedly... discussions about 'pre-bid' and 'post-bid'
arrangements are another matter reserved for another session).
Yes, choices abound -- however, can you honestly say that all the
choices will be backed by enterprises that can afford to actually
offer the support that the government _may_ and will most probably
need? In government, usually it's not about choice, it's about getting
a solution that works because it's not government's business to write
software. If the software it uses allows it to do the job that it's
supposed to do (which is generally serve its constituency to the
maximum of its capability).
> If a local firm can actually get a fair playing field with regards to
> getting a contract sourced to them by developing open source solutions
> for goverment software requirements and then develop _quality_
> software, that would be a good thing. However, right now, not all open
> source development firms in our country owned fully by Filipino
> nationals are qualified to bid for government software requirement
> projects. If that can be somehow addressed, perhaps that will be a
> good thing. But right now, I don't know a lot of firms that can
> deliver in case the government _will_ require or favor open source
> software for all software requirements in government.
At any rate, requiring is not the same as favoring. The former doesn't
allow much choice - the latter does, although it would tend to stay with
a side if it serves its interests.
It's not always a fair play with government - they aren't bound to the
interests of any company's shareholders. They are bound to serve the
interests of its citizens. Even with favoring FOSS, it's not doesn't
necessarily mean the discrimination of proprietary software if it does
the job satisfactorily. It's now a matter of what serves the interests
of the citizens better. Economically and progressively speaking, FOSS
fits that.
There lies the problem -- we still lack FOSS software that will be
good enough for our government's current needs, and the needs that
will come up in the future. If there already is FOSS that will be
enough to meet the government's need, where's the support? Where's the
responbility and accountability? Who do you hold responsible when the
software goes wrong? How is government assured that there are people
who will help them when things go wrong?
>
> Yes, but this is like sitting in an Ivory Tower. Sure, it would great
> to think of the ideal case, but in the real world "training" is
> paramount to "doing" -- meaning, there is no better training than
> actually doing it.
>
That is why the CICT isn't really keen to the "requiring" proposal, as
the manpower side isn't yet pretty much solved. The PEOPLE problem first
must be addressed.
That doesn't mean though that it isn't really possible for government to
prefer/favor FOSS projects or projects that use FOSS components if it
serves the purpose. Pure proprietary companies can still participate
even in such an environment.
Here's the proposition: let's not favor FOSS in government, but
encourage small/medium local software development firms to bid in
government projects and not hand out favors. Let's give every producer
a chance to be part of the process, and let's give the process a
chance -- and not get caught up with the FOSS politics.
When perhaps there is a local software development firm that can
"break the glass ceiling", then perhaps the government will
unknowingly or voluntarily favor the local open source software
enterprises. Until then, I still don't see a compelling justification
for favoring FOSS for the benefit of the constituency.
Quite true. However, given the change of the times, government must also
show its support for these changes. As of now, the facility for such
support for FOSS is not formalized as a preference but as a trend.
Which I think is good enough -- the trend is even better than
something institutionalized. Let's keep the trend going, and just
leave it at that. Formalizing it might not be the right thing to do
anyway.
Politics is all about the acquisition of power. As much as we would like
to avoid it, there are times wherein this power must be acquired. If
it's more favorable to the public interest that favoring the greater
good of the public to be achieved - then that should be done.
There are still more pressing issues than FOSS licenses to software - I
do believe that the most pressing issue is the PEOPLE factor. That must
first be alleviated...
I agree. I personally don't think that favoring FOSS in government
will necessarily alleviate the PEOPLE factor of the software
development process in general.
>
> Then a bill favoring Free Software license is not the solution: the
> solution would be a bill/law that will require that all software
> developed for government under a valid contract have as part of the
> stipulations the source code be turned over and made available for
> reuse and modification by the government, or a third party found to be
> suitable to extend the software in the future. This bill should not
> have anything to do with open source licenses, but rather the
> definition of the stipulations of contracts undertaken by the
> Philippine government.
This is already done by FOSS licenses _automatically_. So why create
another legal predicament? Are you proposing a contract for copyright
transfer from the original producer to government? That will open more
avenues of abuse than we already have.
It's not copyright transfer -- it's code transfer. Copyright is kept
by the author, and under a contractual agreement with the government,
the source code (or product) may be used by the government but not
owned by government. This may prove to be something a proprietary
software producing firm can agree too, especially if the software was
built from scratch (or even if they reused some proprietary external
library/tool).
Yes, open source licenses already do that, but stating it clearly in
the contract will not hurt open source software -- but it will require
that the winning bid's code be made available to government regardless
whether the license is open source or otherwise.
--
Dean Michael C. Berris
C/C++ Software Architect
Orange and Bronze Software Labs
http://3w-agility.blogspot.com/
http://cplusplus-soup.blogspot.com/
Mobile: +639287291459
Email: dean [at] orangeandbronze [dot] com
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