It's nice to see that a lot has something to say about the bill. I read the article posted by Anthony. It's quite interesting that a congressman coming from a Bayan Muna. And we know their leanings. (I will not argue if their ideology is agreeable or not).
I am curious who is really the proponent behind this bill. My hunch is that the congressman is just a medium, but who is really pushing it? For every bill that is passed, there's (more often than not) a lobbyist in the background .On the otherhand, the people here in the mailing list are members of the grassroots. We can talk all day here about the merits or demerits of this bill, but are we walking to the right person that can influence the bill? What about the bigwigs in the FOSS market, where they consulted? Do they agree on most of us here in this topic? My suggestion is to have a discussion with this congressman (calling the bigwigs of the FOSS industry) and explain the side of the grassroots; unless this bigwigs agree with the bill. IN the end, if the ones who are sharing ideas here have no way of influencing the bill, this will only end up as sharing of opinions but not making any progress on this particular topic. just a thought... On 12/5/06, Anthony Chua <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
In pascual's column at http://www.manilamail.com/archive/dec2006/06dec03.htm it says that >A bill is being pushed in Congress forbidding all government agencies and >state-controlled firms from buying and using any of the computer software >sold in the market! Mmmm... there is a lot of OSS being sold on the market but then it is just OSS and not FOSS. >proprietary software monopolies like, say, Microsoft, Unix and Adobe. >Unlike proprietary software, FOSS is cheap (in fact, most FOSS are >distributed gratis to the public by their own developers and can be >freely distributed), Redhat and Java are both open source, but they are very expensive compared to the Microsoft equivalents. The government might end up spending more on the commercial OSS software (because they would need the tech support) as a result of this bill. >the software), interoperable (FOSS adhere to open standards and are >meant to work across various platforms and protocols) Microsoft Office supports XML and works on OS X. I really hate many aspects of MS Office, but OpenOffice sucks even more. >It is pure hypocrisy for Mr. Pascual and his friends in the >multi-billion proprietary software industry to wave the banner of free >choice and then raise a howl when we consumers, government included, >make a choice that they do not want. The bill that the leftist congressman is trying to pass is not about choice, it is about removing it. Our government should be encouraged to use FOSS because in so many cases it is superior to commercial alternatives, but forcing it to do so in the form of this bill is more about politics and ideology than common sense. *** Nothing in the current laws prevents government agencies from using or trying out FOSS. *** Government should be encouraged, not FORCED, to use FOSS. This bill's wording forces it to. The bill is not necessary, all we need are for IT heads in government departments to stop making blind decisions to use Microsoft. But really, why all the need for politics? The open source juggernaut is unstoppable. Throug sheer market forces, more people are choosing PHP instead of ASP or ASP.NET. Such artificial means and lmiting of choices may end up hurting or delay the inevitable. Example scenario: If a forced adoption of open source leads to an IT disaster. - anthony _________________________________________________________________ Find singles online in your area with MSN Dating and Match.com! http://match.ph.msn.com/match/mt.cfm?pg=channel&tcid=281209 _________________________________________________ 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
-- Regards, Maenard --------------------- "Ability is what you're capable of doing... Motivation determines what you do... Attitude determines how well you do it."
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