[governance] CS Statement: FOSS

[Robert Guerra]

FOSS and  issues, processes and costs related to procurement  
contracts - are related to financing, as such - Would a statement on  
FOSS not be more appropriate in the financing text(s) being  
negotiated @ wsis, vs internet governance  ?

Asking for "favoured" legal status of one type of IP model (foss) vs.  
another - is important. Achievable - hard to say.

if we want text, then what would be needed is a  concise, short text  
that  could be endorsed by several foss friendly countries. Do we  
have such text ready? if not, can do we want to re-introduce the FOSS  
related language that was suggested at Prepcom 3 of phase 1 ?

regards

Robert



--
Robert Guerra <rguerra at privaterra.org>
Managing Director, Privaterra <http://www.privaterra.org>




On 14-Aug-05, at 5:16 PM, karen banks wrote:

> dear all
>
> here are ca's comments on the FOSS language - i'd appreciate it if  
> folks
> concerned could work on agreeable text, taking ca's comments on  
> board (two
> sets)
>
> karen
>
>
>> The point is: in many countries (Brazil included, and I bet in all
>> developed countries as well), if a public office bids for something
>> (whatever this something is, tangible or not) which involves  
>> public funds,
>> selects a particular bidder's offer, and there are grounds to  
>> prove this
>> bidder's offer is more expensive and could be replaced with  
>> another which
>> would be as effective and would cost less, then the public (the  
>> taxpayers)
>> can sue. This also applies to the purchase of any licence to use any
>> virtual service or good, including software licencing.
>>
>> It is not that they are forced to use FOSS, but they legally  
>> should if the
>> other alternatives are more expensive for equivalent service.
>>
>> This would not preclude contracts for proprietary software even if in
>> principle FOSS is ready to be used as replacement -- it must be the
>> subject of a careful analysis of the real situation. Example:  
>> Brazil is
>> now replacing its systems belonging to the National Social Insurance
>> System. Most of the software developed for it along many years is  
>> totally
>> Windows-dependent, and the change will take some years to  
>> complete. In the
>> meantime, they need to keep the system running and to expand. So the
>> federal government licences Windows for this maintenance and  
>> expansion,
>> even if the policy is to opt for FOSS whenever possible, while  
>> development
>> of the alternative system is still in the works. So there are no  
>> grounds
>> here for a public action against these specific purchases.
>>
>> In summary: the point is just to stress that there are also legal  
>> grounds
>> which could potentially put a public office (or officials) at risk  
>> if they
>> just keep buying Oracle, Microsoft and so on.
>>
>> It is essential to stress these aspects also in our campaign in  
>> favor of
>> FOSS in particular and freedom of knowledge in general. In Brazil,  
>> not
>> only the current policy might change in days if Lula falls or does  
>> not win
>> the next election, but also there are several divergin views  
>> within the
>> current government, ranging from believing FOSS is something like  
>> God to
>> saying FOSS is a "silly, secondary nuisance". So the struggle for  
>> freedom
>> of knowledge is a difficult one here too, despite all the advertising
>> showing it is not. Thus, scaring those spenders of public money a  
>> bit with
>> explicit arguments like this is never too much.
>>
>> Perhaps the phrase could be a bit more extensive to make this clear.
>>
>> besos y abrazos
>>
>> --c.a.
>>
>
> In addition: the argument that "it is cheaper, more secure and  
> better" is
> too simplistic. It is not necessarily better -- it depends on the  
> relative
> stages of development, on the particular application etc.  
> Definitely in the
> world of multimedia, for example, we are still far from having
> professionally solid and all-embracing alternatives to replace the
> proprietary equivalents (ask any professional video producer to  
> replace her
> Final Cut Pro or Avid package with a FOSS alternative...), and so on.
>
> Regarding "cheaper", any specific contract or bid must balance the  
> saved
> cost of licencing with the cost of migration, development and  
> maintenance.
> Usually the balance is significantly positive in favor of FOSS, but
> unfortunately not always. Here it also depends on the local stage of
> technical development (availability of trained people, local  
> competence in
> software development etc).
>
> "More secure", definitely yes for the final user (at the workstation
> level), but at the server level we still have problems -- recently  
> a hacker
> managed to use a buffer overflow exploit in one of our Apache  
> servers for
> which the patch was just being made available. Lucky us that the FOSS
> community reacts rapidly, but we need to have software security  
> expertise
> available in any case.
>
> In a word, like in the governance debate (ICANN vs ITU), FOSS also  
> ranges
> between polar views ("FOSS is God" vs "FOSS is unimportant"). We  
> have to
> find the proper balance, fight for the essential concepts which  
> clearly
> favor FOSS against proprietary, and recognize the complexities of  
> harsh
> reality in applying them to practice.
>
> -- c.a
>
> _______________________________________________
> governance mailing list
> governance at lists.cpsr.org
> https://ssl.cpsr.org/mailman/listinfo/governance
>

_______________________________________________
governance mailing list
governance at lists.cpsr.org
https://ssl.cpsr.org/mailman/listinfo/governance