SCN: Open source

[Steve]

x-no-archive: yes  

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(Paul Festa, ZDNet)---Governments around the world have found a 
new rallying cry--"Software libre!"--and Microsoft is working overtime 
to quell it. A recent global wave of legislation is compelling 
government agencies, and in some cases government-owned 
companies, to use open-source or free software unless proprietary 
software is the only feasible option.    

This legal movement, earliest and most pronounced in Brazil, but 
also showing signs of catching on elsewhere in Latin America, 
Europe and Asia, is finding ready converts as governments struggle 
to close sometimes vast digital divides with limited information-
technology budgets. So far, there is no evidence that similar 
legislation is being considered anywhere in the United States, 
experts said.    

Open-source and free software represent a budget-priced alternative 
to Microsoft's Windows operating system and applications that can 
cost thousands of dollars a month to license. In addition, access to 
underlying source code means governments and businesses can fix 
problems or modify software to work more effectively.    

But behind the obvious reasons for the move to open-source and 
free software are more subtle issues. One of the overriding drivers 
behind legislation, experts said, appears to be a desire to break free 
of the United States' lock on the global software market.    

Laws requiring the use of free or open-source software give 
governments "free rein to do what they want, how they want and 
when they want it," said IDC analyst Dan Kusnetzky. "It's not just 
the United States government they're worried about but a single 
vendor exercising so much power over their government operations. 
A government would not like to be under so much influence from any 
supplier."    

In Europe, where numerous bills and resolutions have been 
introduced, local, state and federal governments spent $7.8 billion 
on software in 2000. In Brazil, governments spent a mere $200 
million the same year, an indication of how little the country has to 
spend on software and why free or low-priced software holds such 
powerful appeal.    

Proponents of the legislation use the term "software libre" to 
describe software that is not only free of licensing fees but whose 
development is not controlled by a single company.    

Theoretically, that single company could be any one of a number of 
software providers. In reality, most of the legislation in Europe, Asia 
and Latin America is specifically targeted at gaining freedom from 
Microsoft and its perceived lock on the commercial software 
business.    

In a motion passed by the city government of Florence, Italy, in 
June, legislators warned that continued use of proprietary software 
was leading to "the computer science subjection of the Italian state 
to Microsoft."    

Microsoft has matched or exceeded this level of rhetoric with its 
comments on open-source software, characterizing it variously as 
"a cancer," "an intellectual property destroyer" and--appropriately 
enough in the context of the global wave of open-source-only law--
"un-American."    

In response to the new laws, Microsoft summoned arguments 
similar to those it has made in its protracted antitrust fight with the 
U.S. government.    

"Regarding this specific (legal) trend, we don't believe that 
governments should pick winners and losers," said Microsoft 
spokesman Ricardo Adame. "Technology should compete on its 
merits in a free market. Let the government look at all the options 
and then make a decision, so they can say, 'We may have to pay for 
this software, but it's the best solution for our specific needs.'"    

Since the laws are so new, and so few have actually passed, it's 
unclear what financial effect they might have on Microsoft. The 
company sold more than $5 billion worth of software in Europe, the 
Middle East and Africa and more than $2.5 billion worth of products 
in Asia during fiscal 2001. Microsoft does not break out Latin 
American sales.    

But the trend could be troubling to the software giant, which has 
eyed the proliferation of open-source software nervously. Microsoft 
isn't taking the new legal assault sitting down. Adame said that 
through regional trade associations, the company had lobbied the 
Brazilian government against adopting laws mandating open 
source.    

"We want to participate in any discussions on industry policy all 
over the world," said Adame. "We are aware of initiatives in Brazil 
and have expressed our concerns to different government officials. 
We're supporting the position that the decision by government to 
acquire technology should be based on the benefits and value of 
that technology and not on limiting those possibilities."    

Governments--especially those of poorer nations with less money to 
spend on information technology--are eager to reap the cost savings 
of using free software.    

But the rhetoric behind the movement to enact these laws is at times 
ideological and nationalistic, with legislators urging their colleagues 
to avoid dependence on software whose export is legally controlled 
by the United States and whose development and licensing is 
controlled by this country's dominant software industry.    

"Many administrations are still using communication standards 
tightly linked to a single private provider, which forces citizens and 
public organizations to become customers of the same provider 
and, in the end, significantly stimulates abuses of dominant position 
in the market," reads the preamble to one French bill under 
consideration.    

"Public administrations of the state often use software which they 
cannot access the source code; this situation makes it impossible to 
fix bugs that the software publisher refuses to fix or to check that 
there is no security trap in strategic software," the preamble 
continues. "Public administrations sometimes use, without even 
being aware of it, software which communicates sensitive private 
information to foreign companies or organizations."    

Open-source software packages allow organizations to examine the 
underlying code and, in some cases, change that code to fix a 
problem or modify it to run with other software. The source code for 
Microsoft's products is closely guarded and unavailable to most 
customers. The company does allow its largest customers to access 
source code under a program called "shared source."    

Beyond the issue of source-code access, analysts say, concerns 
about autonomy and national security are likely to drive passage of 
more laws discouraging use of proprietary software.    

A number of countries have also used legislation to promote 
indigenous technology industries, such as PC makers. Brazil and 
China place heavy export duties on technology products, which 
effectively forces U.S. companies to build local facilities and employ 
large portions of the population.    

Countries in Africa also have used software export laws to help 
encourage local providers.    

The cradle of the new wave of laws mandating free software appears 
to be Brazil, where four cities--Amparo, Solonopole, Ribeirao Pires 
and Recife--have passed laws giving preference to or requiring the 
use of "software libre." Other municipalities, states and the national 
government have mulled similar legislation.    

Brazil has proved fertile ground for open-source laws, and free 
software advocates say that other developing nations will likely 
follow its lead.    

"This is a political and ethical issue, just like freedom of the press 
or freedom of association," said Richard Stallman, founder and 
president of the Free Software Foundation, who this year addressed 
the Brazilian Congress on the subject. "It makes sense, especially 
for countries like Brazil that are not rich, to encourage the country to 
switch from proprietary software to free software.    

"In addition to giving people freedoms, software has a secondary 
benefit because people can use this freedom to save a lot of money 
now draining away to a few rich foreigners."    

Elsewhere around the globe, Florence in June passed a motion 
mandating the use of "software libero" when feasible. A handful of 
smaller Italian municipalities, including Pavia, have passed similar 
motions.    

The Florentine motion's author, a member of the local Green Party, 
is now drafting a measure to be introduced by his colleagues in the 
national parliament.    

In France, the Senate last year considered a proposal requiring the 
government to use only free, open-source software and to establish 
a bureau of free software overseeing the measure's implementation. 
Described as an attention-getting scheme more than as a plausible 
bill, the proposal and its revision were defeated.    

However, French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin last week handed 
down a decree creating the Agency for Technologies of Information 
and Communication in Administration (ATICA), one of whose 
missions is "to encourage administrations to use free software and 
open standards."    

Despite the anti-U.S. bent behind much of the recent legislation, the 
legal trend against proprietary software hasn't left U.S. companies 
entirely in the cold. Instead, companies that have embraced open-
source software are capitalizing on the foreign appetite for such 
software.    

IBM, for example, recently invested $200 million in its Linux 
ventures in Asia. And other companies are viewing the open-source 
legislative push as a positive development for their own open-
source efforts.    

"We're noticing a lot of countries looking at free and open software 
as an alternative and mandating its use in certain situations," said 
Danese Cooper, whose informal title at Sun Microsystems is "open-
source diva" and who is manager of its open-source programs 
office. "It's very exciting because any time you have respectable 
entities like governments saying they want to look seriously at a 
certain kind of code, that supports a movement and gives it 
legitimacy."    

Based on the Sun-sponsored OpenOffice project, Sun's StarOffice is 
intended to compete with Microsoft's Office software.    

Cooper speculated that countries with strong socialist histories or 
political movements are more likely to embrace open-source or free 
software, whether by force of law or by less-sweeping means.    

Some analysts caution that the idealistic goals of the software libre 
movement are worthy but likely to meet with frustration in the 
government sector, at least in the short term.    

"The use of free software is a noble idea, but government agencies 
typically do not have the technology modernization nor the technical 
expertise to ensure rapid adoption," said Rishi Sood, an analyst 
with Gartner. "Government agencies certainly need to develop more 
open-based technology systems and are looking for ways to 
improve data sharing across the enterprise."    

The political rhetoric surrounding the debate over open-source law 
supports that speculation, with ideological passions and concerns 
over privacy, open standards and globalism driving much of the 
legislative efforts.    

"Economic models of the software industry and the 
telecommunications industry...tend to induce strategies of 
incompatibility, industrial secrets, programmed obsolescence and 
violation of individual liberties," reads the preamble to the defeated 
French bill.    

Activists and programmers, while they welcome the free-software-
only initiatives, say they're holding out for more sweeping legal 
protections for their work.    

"These laws are not the kind of help we most ask for from 
governments," said Stallman. "What we ask is that they not interfere 
with us with things like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, with 
software patents, with prohibitions on reverse engineering that 
enable companies like Microsoft to make proprietary data formats 
and prohibit our work. Those are the main obstacles to satisfying the 
software needs of humanity."    


Copyright 2001 CNet Networks Inc.  






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