Opinion on Brazil making Open Source mandatory in government

Opinion on Brazil making Open Source mandatory in government

Posted Jun 17, 2003 9:42 UTC (Tue) by borges (guest, #12054)
Parent article: Opinion on Brazil making Open Source mandatory in government

I'm sorry Mr Stanco but I think you better at least pay a little more attetion on what is being done __before__ starting to say that a federal government decision is wrong and should be reconsidered.

I'm honestly amazed by your capacity to say somebody is wrong without knowing the subject you are talking about.

Please understand that:

Brazilian Government is __not__ making the use of __OpenSource__ __mandatory__ for 80% of all it's computers.

Brazilian government is going to migrate 80% of it's installed computers to FreeSoftware.

Now please observe two mistakes you made:

1. There _is_ a difference between Free Software and Open Source (as I'm sure you know <wink>); note that in the text you cited yourself there is no mention to the word "Open". Hint: Jose Dirceu "ministro da casa civil" (e.g. "minister of the civil house"), which is BTW perhaps the most porwerful man in the gov. after the president, talked these days on the subject and he was using the words "Software Livre" (e.g."Free Software") (http://linux-sc.opens.com.br/noticias.php?codnot=12 <- this is in portuguese).

2. No one is talking on _mandatory_ use. Where did you came up with that from?? There is no proposal by the part of the federal government of making laws forcing the next federal government or any state or city governments to adopt one or another type of software based on it's license. They (fed. gov.) just decided to migrate part of the (fed. gov. owned) existing base system to FreeSoftware.

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Some comments on this decision: AFAIK this had been decided from day one of this government, since from the early beginning (of their mandate) IBM was hired to study how feasible this migration would be (I think that this study should now be finished in order for gov. people to be talking like this).

The Worker's Party (currently holding federal power) has already made trasitions of this type in several cities where they had mayors in previous years (I believe that at in least in one state as well); so this move does not surprise anyone paying attention to what was being made by them.

Connectiva's web site (www.connectiva.com.br) used to carry a list of cities (in Brazil) where the use of FreeSoftware had been made _mandatory_ by law. Don't know if it's still there.

Regards,
Borges.

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