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Re: Open source and government

by rinceWind (Monsignor)
on Apr 05, 2006 at 09:57 UTC ( [id://541327]=note: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??


in reply to Open source and government

Reading the article and this thread, I see that the argument is about Central Government and the USA. For people living outside the US, your mileage may vary - mine certainly does.

Living in a country whose prime minister by his own admission, "struggles to do more than switch on a computer"[1], Government tends to have the reputation of being overly bureaucratic and clueless, rather than directly hostile towards Open Source. What counterbalances this is the large lobby of technically savvy individuals, who do understand Open Source, and have not taken the Gates' shilling.

There are several cases where Open Source has won, due to the argument of saving money; after all it's hard to undercut something that's free. What works against this is the FUD from the major software vendors about lack of support. My experiences are that most open source software is better supported, because people care about it - Perlmonks being a case in point.

Currently, there is an anti-trust case worth following of Microsoft V the EU, see The Register. Although not directly about Open Source, it says much about attitudes of many EU countries to Microsoft. In most cases, there is more take up of Linux in Local Government than Central Government.

I'm also fascinated by what's going on in Brazil. Could any Brazilian monks enlighten me as to how the Government's procurement policies which favour Open Source, are working out.

[1] Metro 60 Second Interview with Tony Blair, 5th April 2006.

--

Oh Lord, won’t you burn me a Knoppix CD ?
My friends all rate Windows, I must disagree.
Your powers of persuasion will set them all free,
So oh Lord, won’t you burn me a Knoppix CD ?
(Missquoting Janis Joplin)

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Re^2: Open source and government
by DaWolf (Curate) on Apr 05, 2006 at 12:47 UTC
    First of all the initiative - to use OSS - itself was a giant step the government took, since our country always had a huge influence of the major players, specially Microsoft.

    Being a third world country this influence started to be seen as a bad thing, since the government costs with commercial software licensing were quite absurd.

    I've gathered some news from our government's site that shows that things are looking very promising, but of course this should be taken with a grain of salt.

    One of them specially - too bad I couldn't find a translated version - tells about how our government is using OSS to clean the "social previdence"(1) data bases, using a tool that includes phonetic comparison of names and, quoting the article, "Another difference between this tool and the programs that we use today is that it can analyze more elements than just the name of the beneficiary.", meaning that the OSS solution that is being adopted is more powerful than the commercial one.

    Another nice part on the same article mentions that another good thing is that the government can alter the way the software works, which is clearly seen as a positive feature.

    I know some people who work on government companies, so I'll try to bring some "inside view" for you.

    (1) This is how we call here - "Previdência Social". I believe an analogy with the USA could be done by comparing this with your Social Security Service, but I'm not entirely sure.

    Hope I've helped a little and please bare with me since my written english is a little rusty.

    Regards,

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