The International Telecommunications Union's World Summit on the Information Society (or WSIS for short, because we need more acronyms in the world) was last week. The conference was intended as a forum to discuss the information technology revolution, and more specifically, the growing "digital divide" between rich and poor nations.
In practice, this resulted in a rather diverse set of talking points, as interest groups strove to link their pet issue to the central theme with varying degrees of success (among them a group that went by the name of The Geneva03 Collective, who was most notable for filling my inbox with "out of office" replies from every person registered as a member of the press).
Of particular interest, however, was a moderated debate on the issue of preferential treatment for open-source products in government procurement, a topic I have discussed in the past. Four of the panellists were pro-preference, and represented Malaysia, Cuba, Peru and Kenya. The lone voice opposing such preferences was Bob Kramer, vice president for public policy from the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA), a group upon which Bruce Perens has trained his ever-present "Microsoft is the source of everything bad that happens" machine gun.
The "pro" camp made good points, and you certainly couldn't fault them for failing to be close to the IT situation in their respective countries. There were a few misconceptions, however, regarding the role proprietary software plays in software development. In short, proprietary software is little more than a means of "monetising" software so as to make it a source of growth and an attractor of investment, and that "monetisation" is essential to the health and future growth of a software industry in developing nations.
Highlights of the pro-preference argument
Developing nations have less money to spend on software than developed nations. This makes initial cost a far more important discriminator than might be the case in rich nations. The "choice" can come down to use of free, open-source software or no software at all, as proprietary software, most of which comes from rich countries and is MUCH more expensive due to exchange rate differentials, can cost too much from a licensing standpoint ("Total Cost of Ownership" only matters if you can afford to start using IT solutions in the first place). The Malaysian representative spoke of low-cost PCs running Linux that were shipped out to villages, enabling them to use in some way information technology without being hit by expensive licensing fees associated with proprietary products.
Talkback
An interesting, but fundamentally flawed article.
The explanation of how the monetisation of software leads to profit and jobs is pretty laughable, as it is so narrowly focused on the needs of the technology industry.
What about the companies that actually pay for and use the software?
Most companies see IT as a cost. Anything that helps reduce the cost leaves more capital free to return to shareholders, invest in other products & services, etc.
It is also a plain & evident fact that relying on propriety software from foreign sources is going to do little to support the indigenous IT industry of many third world countries.
Echoing the sentiment of the first comment here: interesting but irrelevant article.
1. GPL and proprietary software are not at complete odds. Nothing to stop companies writing proprietary applications for Linux, and make money, create jobs etc. etc as author has advocated. GPL only covers MODIFIED code, not completely new intellectual property. Have a look at Oracle and Sun and a host others' portfolio offerings.
2. Article does nothing to address the concerns of developing countries which lead to preference of open-source software. Mainly
- a question of trusting Microsoft Proprietary software at the moment mainly means windows + MS office in government procurement. They fear, rightly, of lock-ins and lack of choice later on.
- IT expenditure flowing out of their country. Money going to US and western Europe is money down the drain when you have open-source solutions. Far better to see the same money going to local support infrastructure and stimulate local IT skills development, either in support of specific application development.
Red Hat Profits up 35%...
Proprietary software WAS an extremely successful business model. However Microsoft took a strangle hold on the market and use various lock in techniques to hold onto customers. In doing so it became very successful while other companies were put out of business. One measure of how healthy a market is is how many major players there are. In desktop software there is currently only one major player, ergo the the market is unhealthy.
Large foreign software companies did not become "centres of software innovation using the revenue generation power of proprietary software". They became successful because they had the initial investment lacking in third world countries.
OSS can compete and is competing with proprietary software. As noted at the begiinning of this responce Red Hats profits are up 35% in a business model that does not depend on selling the software, just the support services.
It would be nice to see John Carroll respond to these comments. It seems a bit redundant to have a Talkback feature where apparently nobody from ZDNet listens...
JC Penny is a paid con artist. He is paid to filter out the facts that can be used to advance the argument for free and open software.
Only a braindead or a paid professional will disagree with the fact that Open Source creates better and chaeper software. In software it is said that there is always a compromise but not in Open and free software.
How safe is this software for your machine?