On 7/18/06, Charles Yao <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
The difference of the University of California is that it is a private company, if it is a public school it is still governed by its charter, they can do evrything as long as it is under their charter. Including refusing entry to students for whatever reason (try UP for instance). Can the government deny you your citizenship? No! Even the most hardened criminals do not lose their citizenship, admission is permanent until you renonunce it yourself. Does the constitution say that it is the governments responsibility to provide software? NO! does it say it should provide IT? NO! How about roads? Yes!, Schools Yes!. It is not a logical extention, you have access to roads, power and water because the government is to provide public utilities, ie basic necessities. Software is not necessary to live.
This discussion is not about software per se, but rather the governement infrastructure built and dependent on software. If the architecture of the infrastructure of the governement is owned by a single vendor, the growth and progress is dependent on that vndor.
Software in this case is a necessity because we use computers to automate or enhance the speed of delivery of information which in effect transforms into a more efficient way of serving their constituents. It seems the discussion is revolving around the licensing issue. Yes, GPL may hinder commercial viability of software development, but in this case, for the transparanecy of the government's activity, licensing need not be an issue. In the US, their IT infrastructure development was effective bacause it was built on standards, and those standards were implemented effectively using free and open source software like the BSDs, not to mention economically practical. If we keep on convincing ourselves that proprietary software is supposed-to-be-better than free and open source software, just because they provide insulation from litigation, we're missing the point here, and consequently, we blur rather than clarify the issue. I read somewhere that usage of Linux, or any free and open source software, enables the user and interested parties who have access to the source code to have control over their computing environment. That's all there is supposed to be about this proposed Open Source bill, to enable our government to have control over their computing platform of choice for the automation of their functions and services. Now, is that too much to ask for? Given the proliferation of proprietary software and the economic impact of piracy and financial instability, who among us can stand up and say preferring free and open source software is impractical or unwise? Who among us have balls to stand up and move forward for technological independence? If not now, when? If not us, who? _________________________________________________ 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
