[luau] NEWS: Peru Congressman & Open Source vs Microsoft

[Warren Togami]

http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,51902,00.html

Very interesting article from Wired Magazine about a bill in Peru's
Congress that would mandate the use of Open Source software in
government use.  It talks about the challenges that the bill faces, a
letter from Microsoft Peru, and an AMAZING letter in response from Peru
Congressman DR. EDGAR DAVID VILLANUEVA NUÑEZ that blasts every point
from the Microsoft letter.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=32114&threshold=1&commentsort=3&tid=117&
mode=thread&cid=3463723
His letter (mirrored at this URL) is very good reading too.  I am very
much impressed by the Peruvian government and especially this
Congressman.  A few of the better quotes from this letter:

"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)."

(and perhaps one of the best portions from his letter)

"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."


Slashdot Discusion on this subject
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/05/04/220237&mode=thread&tid=117

Warren Togami
warren at togami.com