Who’s Afraid of FOSS
Posted by Chin Wong | Posted in General | Posted on 20-03-2010-05-2008
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A NUMBER of readers wrote in about my column on Microsoft’s $3 Windows package for students in poor countries. Not all of them agreed that the program is aimed primarily at locking in a new generation of Windows users and luring people away from free and open source software (FOSS).
“Microsoft is running a business and trying to make money while competing with free alternatives and pirated software,” wrote one reader who chose to remain anonymous. “Who stops schools from using Ubuntu? It’s just the ease of use that makes people go towards Windows. Don’t blame Microsoft where they don’t deserve it. And this comes from someone who runs OS X.”
Nobody disputes that Microsoft is running a business. In fact, that was the premise of the entire piece. The company would be foolish indeed if it didn’t realize that much of what it does today with Windows and MS Office is threatened by free-and arguably better–alternatives such as Ubuntu, one of the most popular Linux distributions for desktop and notebook computers and OpenOffice.
Who stops schools and other institutions from using Ubuntu and other open source software? The naivete of the question surprised me.
A group calling itself the Initiative for Software Choice has been lobbying against open source since May 2002. Its biggest backer, CNet reports, is Microsoft.
Software Choice is one of those misnomers like the Patriot Act in the United States, which cloaks the blatant violation of civil liberties behind a fancy name, or the Clear Skies Initiative, which actually weakens existing air pollution standards.
Just recently, the UK-based Inquirer reports, Software Choice lobbyists warned the European Commission about “the dangers” of open source software. In particular, Software Choice tried to discredit the findings of a study conducted by researchers at the United Nations University in Maastricht, Netherlands, that found that open source software is indeed cost-effective.
That study, available on the European Commission Web site, notes that it would cost companies in Europe 12 billion euros and 131,000 real person years to internally reproduce the existing base of free and open source software that they already use.
Researchers also found that the use of free and open source software saves companies more than 36 percent in software R&D investments that can result in higher profits or more funding for innovation.
But Software Choice said the study “does not holistically reflect the full dynamics now occurring in the vibrant software marketplace.” The group also complained that the report “fails to consider the achievements of various other forms of software licensing and business models.”
The group argued that companies like Microsoft can develop better products because they can spend more on R&D, but failed to mention the numerous delays in the development of the company’s flagship Windows Vista operating system, or the many security holes in its other products like Windows XP and Internet Explorer.
On its Web site, Software Choice says governments should procure software on its merits, not through categorical preferences. “Governments are best served when they can select software from a broad range of products based on such considerations as value, total cost of ownership, feature set, performance and security,” the group states.
It is an attractive but deceptive argument that is clearly aimed at governments that want to pass laws favoring free and open source software.
While speaking of the freedom to choose, Software Choice does not address the use of proprietary file formats that lock users in rather than giving them a real choice. Nor does it speak of the near monopoly that Windows enjoys on desktop computers.
Software Choice also ignores the fact that opting for open source is a choice of direction rather than of specific products that any government should be free to make. Governments do this all the time when they pick a standard by which all their suppliers must comply. If a government decides to go open source, then Microsoft and other commercial software developers may either comply or seek business elsewhere.
It is curious that Microsoft plays the choice card when it is at the forefront of industry groups that restrict end-user freedom. For example, it is the driving force behind the Business Software Alliance, whose main mission is to browbeat governments into enforcing copyright rules that force customers to pay through the nose for commercial software. Now that these heavy-handed tactics have backfired and driven people toward open source, Software Choice wants to herd them back toward expensive, proprietary software.
All this lobbying shows that Microsoft is running a business, all right, but it’s also running scared because of FOSS. And it should be. Open source programs are often better and always cheaper than their proprietary counterparts. And they’re getting easier to use, too. What choice could be simpler?
From Digital Life by Chin Wong
Chin Wong has been covering the technology industry since the 1980s, starting as a reporter for Business Day, Southeast Asias first daily business newspaper. He is now a lecturer in journalism at the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines and associate editor for the Manila Standard Today. Before that, he also served as technology editor of the Manila Times until October 2004.
Author: Chin Wong
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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