Wrong way to look at it

Wrong way to look at it

Posted Jun 14, 2003 0:10 UTC (Sat) by roskegg (subscriber, #105)
Parent article: Opinion on Brazil making Open Source mandatory in government

Free Software is about freedom, not about money. The government would not be buying the software unless it needed it for it's own use. Democratic transparency REQUIRES the use of Free Software by the government. I believe the use of the phrase Open Source obscures this fact, because it was promoted by people who don't care about our ideals of freedom, and were looking to promote free software as a "silver bullet". It isn't. It is an entirely different concept of how to live life.

Markets and "economic fitness" of software have nothing to do with Free Software or it's use in government. Whether government uses software or not is irrelevant to how well or poorly the software does in the proprietary market. As the Peruvian congressman pointed out, the government has no obligation to subsidize the software industry. As long as the software it pays for fits it's needs, that is sufficient to satisfy the taxpayer.

And finally, Free Software gives governments a lot more confidence in the security and fitness of the software, since spyware is more easily detectable.

I would like to suggest to Mr. Tony Stanco that he re-read the letter of the Peruvian congressman to Microsoft, where all the above items and more are described in sufficient detail to convince anyone that Brazil has made a great step forward, leading the way into the future for the rest of us.

Viva Brazil!

A Debian Developer

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