On Mon, Aug 11, 2003 at 10:28:19PM -0800, inion wrote: > Have any of you seen this? So in essence we are deriving the Philippine > economy of potential earnings if the country adopts an Open Source > policy? How true is this? > http://www.inq7.net/inf/2003/aug/08/text/inf_38-1-p.htm
I'm not sure how aware you folks are in the Philippines of Microsoft's tactics, but this letter was likely written by a Microsoft PR worker, then given to Wilson to pass off as his own. They'll never come out and say this directly, but they'll pay someone else to. They have went so far in the US as to have an advertising agency write fake letters to the editor in papers around the country, some using the names of dead people. I have two things to say about this. First, it's utter bs. Sending your money to Redmond, Washington in the US will in no way help your economy. Keeping your money local, however, will. Open source software in your government will not only save money for the government, it will also keep the money that is spent in the country as it will pay for services around the software. This is all the more reason the Philippines needs its own Linux distribution. And, second, you must resist US pressure to use Microsoft products. This is sad to say, but Peru was pressured by the US to not adopt the open source law, citing most of the same tired arguments as Wilson supposedly makes. Peru is holding a US citizen, Lori Berenson, in prison for 20 years under false charges, and the US government has made no effort to help her. But talk about open source software in government and you get our attention. I can hardly believe it sometimes. You (the open source community) need to watch for this to happen, and point out that it happens in other countries where these laws are passed, and it's simply not worth worrying about. My concern is that Tita Gloria seems to be very interested in keeping a good relationship with the US- which in and of itself is a good thing- but that the Phil government may easily cave in to such pressure from the US so that the relationship will not be strained. I assure you that it won't be strained in any way, particularly as long as the US is on the global fight against terrorism. To be perfectly clear: you need to fight any external pressure to buy software from Redmond, Washington. Remember my motto: don't pay for something you can download for free. And I don't mean pirating software :) Michael -- Michael Darrin Chaney [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.michaelchaney.com/ -- Philippine Linux Users' Group (PLUG) Mailing List [EMAIL PROTECTED] (#PLUG @ irc.free.net.ph) Official Website: http://plug.linux.org.ph Searchable Archives: http://marc.free.net.ph . To leave, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/plug . Are you a Linux newbie? To join the newbie list, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/ph-linux-newbie
