Hi Manny,
On 9/19/06, manny <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Thu, 14 Sep 2006, Dean Michael Berris wrote:
> Hmmm... Even if there is no (or very little) Filipino FOSS to be made
> available to the government, it can be promoted and draconianly be
> required in all the government agencies.
Uh, then use other FOSS. You seem to think that the bill requires only
Filipino-made FOSS. You know better.
Then how does this help the Filipino IT industry?
> The proposition is, that we should *NOT* worry about FOSS in the
> government _yet_ (or promoting it further via legislation) because as
> I've already stated, it's needless.
So saving money is needless. Yeah, right...
I thought the bill wasn't about saving money...
If the point was to save money, then let's require government to not
use electricity anymore, and stick with gas powered lanterns, pencils
and paper. ;-)
But seriously, if using FOSS was just about saving money, then I
believe Government is being misled to think that FOSS is Free *and*
cheap.
> what government needs is just Free as in Free Beer software, and not
> Free as in Freedom.
But why not get both when both are available already?
FOSS saves money NOW.
This depends really. You'll be paying third party VAS providers to
install the new FOSS on the old systems -- spend money on training the
people, support and maintenance, all that jazz. If you think
Government will put an IT department on every agency and expect it to
hire hordes of System Administrators, technicians, and whatnot, then
tell me again how that will make government save money NOW.
It also is generally better except in certain
fields where proprietary software has a lead (a lead which can soon
disappear). That's doesn't justify making excuses not to use FOSS now
where it can be.
I think we're looking at different aspects of FOSS here if you think
FOSS is generally better than proprietary software. FOSS just has a
different license -- and the license doesn't make the piece of
software "magical" or "waaaay better" than other solutions.
The statuis quo which you effectively promote is a leeching government
coffers. It has to be addresses now, not later. Making excuses not to do
so is needless.
Remove the Pork Barrel. That should save the government money.
--
Dean Michael C. Berris
C++ Software Architect
Orange and Bronze Software Labs, Ltd. Co.
web: http://software.orangeandbronze.com/
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
mobile: +63 928 7291459
phone: +63 2 8943415
other: +1 408 4049532
blogs: http://mikhailberis.blogspot.com http://3w-agility.blogspot.com
http://cplusplus-soup.blogspot.com
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