---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Rep. Teddy Casiño < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Nov 30, 2006 10:47 AM Subject: Reaction to Conrado Banal's column To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
November 30, 2006 The Editors Philippine Daily Inquirer Re: Reaction to Conrado Banal's column Dear Editors, In his column in the Nov. 21 issue of the Inquirer, Mr. Conrado Banal cites anonymous sources as saying I did not really author the "Free/Open Source Act (FOSS) of 2006" now pending in Congress. He also derides the bill as a "prime model of confusion," this time quoting the Business Software Alliance (BSA). Let me assure Mr. Banal that indeed, I authored the bill. My office worked for four months on this measure. It started with a suggestion by FOSS advocates in the Computer Professionals Union (CPU) to craft a bill that would promote the use of free/open source software in the country. As some sort of a techie and critic of corporate monopolies whether in the oil or software industry I immediately saw merit in the proposal and decided to make a go of it. Free/open source software are the generic drugs of the software industry, providing consumers with an alternative to to the expensive, overbearing and restrictive products of proprietary software monopolies like, say, Microsoft, Unix and Adobe. FOSS are computer applications that may be acquired, copied, modified or redistributed by its users as they see fit. For example, if a consumer needs an office suite that has applications for word processing, presentations, spreadsheet, graphics/drawing and database, he can either get Microsoft Office for PhP19,000 or simply download Open Office on the Internet for free plus have the chance to modify the program plus the permission to redistribute it to every Juan, Pedro or Maria in his community without the BSA breathing down his neck. Another example is Mozilla Firefox, an absolutely free and downloadable web browser that threatens to leave Microsoft Internet Explorer in the dust. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) says FOSS has the following strategic benefits: (1) developing local capacity/industry; (2) Reducing imports/conserving foreign exchange; (3 Enhancing national security; (4) Reducing copyright infringements; (5) Enabling localization; (6) Increasing competition; (7) Reducing total cost of ownership; and (8) Achieving vendor independence. This is the reason why the French parliament and entire French police force have junked Microsoft and are now migrating to FOSS, just like so many other governments in the world. My bill, modeled after the Brazil and Peru FOSS policies, was the result of inputs from various geeks, techies and FOSS practitioners from my two staff who happen to be competent IT professionals, IT lawyers in the UP College of Law, members of the Philippine Linux Users Group (PLUG) to GNU/Linux guru and prime advocate Richard Stallman of the MIT-based Free Software Foundation who personally emailed his very valuable comments. We also incorporated inputs from the government's Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) and the International Open Source Network of the UNDP (IOSN-UNDP). What my bill wants is for government to use and encourage the development of FOSS as well as apply open standards in its IT requirements. It also encourages the education sector to develop IT professionals knowledgeable in this new trend in the software industry. What's so confusing about that, only Mr. Banal and his clients in the BSA can tell. We understand the resistance of proprietary software monopolies to this bill but hey, because its a free market out there, government has every right to choose the products it wants. The pharmaceutical monopolies hated the Generics Drugs Act like hell too but Congress passed it nevertheless because it was good for everyone. Finally, sana naman Mr. Banal contacted me first before making his false and unfair allegations. I was a columnist in a business paper for nine years and it was always our paper's policy to check and double check our facts before publishing them. Rep. Teddy Casiño (Bayan Muna) Member, House of Representatives ____________________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Music Unlimited Access over 1 million songs. http://music.yahoo.com/unlimited _________________________________________________ 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
