[Am-info] Re: IP: Open Source programs for Peru's government

[Gene Gaines]

More on Peru and their resistance to Microsoft illegal monopoly
and attempt at domination of that country's IT capabilities.

Gene
gene.gaines@gainesgroup.com


On Sunday, May 05, 2002, 4:10:06 PM, David Farber wrote:


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Luigidigi <luigidigi@cwpanama.net>
> Date: Sun, 05 May 2002 14:58:44 
> To: farber@cis.upenn.edu
> Subject: Open Source programs for Peru's government

> In a letter to the GM of Microsoft Peru, Peruvian congressman Dr Edgar 
> David Villanueva Nuņez trashes every argument and FUD the MS machine 
> throws at the Peruvian government, point by point.
> The original letter from MS Peru was with regards to a bill in the 
> Peruvian congress that aims at using Open Source programs for its 
> administrative government offices.
> Mr Villanueva explains knowleagebly and with details why the Open Source 
> programs are better for a country like Peru. Well worth the time to read 
> it, it should be obligatory reading at Washington DC.

> Read the letter here
> <http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:TvfSi6UFJpQC:www.gnu.org.pe/resmseng.html+&hl=en&lr=lang_en>
> or at:
> http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:TvfSi6UFJpQC:www.gnu.org.pe/resmseng.html+&hl=en&lr=lang_en

> A few excerpts, in no particular order:

> "The inclusion of the intellectual property of others in works claimed 
> as one's own is not a practice that has been noted in the free software 
> community; whereas, unfortunately, it has been in the area of proprietry 
> software. As an example, the condemnation by the Commercial Court of 
> Nanterre, France, on 27th September 2001 of Microsoft Corp. to a penalty 
> of 3 million francs in damages and interest, for violation of 
> intellectual property (piracy, to use the unfortunate term that your 
> firm commonly uses in its publicity)."

> "To guarantee national security or the security of the State, it is 
> indispensable to be able to rely on systems without elements which allow 
> control from a distance or the undesired transmission of information to 
> third parties. Systems with source code freely accessible to the public 
> are required to allow their inspection by the State itself, by the 
> citizens, and by a large number of independent experts throughout the 
> world. Our proposal brings further security, since the knowledge of the 
> source code will eliminate the growing number of programs with *spy code*."

> "In addition, a reading of your opinion would lead to the conclusion 
> that the State market is crucial and essential for the proprietary 
> software industry, to such a point that the choice made by the State in 
> this bill would completely eliminate the market for these firms. If that 
> is true, we can deduce that the State must be subsidising the 
> proprietary software industry. In the unlikely event that this were 
> true, the State would have the right to apply the subsidies in the area 
> it considered of greatest social value; it is undeniable, in this 
> improbable hypothesis, that if the State decided to subsidize software, 
> it would have to do so choosing the free over the proprietary, 
> considering its social effect and the rational use of taxpayers money."


> Ehem, I need this guy to represent me. :)


> Luis Lima




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