[LinuxBusinessHawaii] Re: [luau] OpenSourceAdvocates

[Warren Togami]

On Sat, 2002-10-12 at 22:25, Jimen Ching wrote:
> >or Openly Sourced.  It would be an equal shame to see OpenSourceAdvocates
> >fail to take their message to the free market and allow it to compete on its
> >merits.
> 
> Can either you or Warren explain how these legislation prevent Open Source
> or Free Software from competing on their merits?
> 
> --jc

By mandating the use of Open Source Software, one would be ignoring
three important factors:
1) Open Source isn't always the "best tool for the job".  Are we going
to force government to use an inferior tool?  (Although some of these
proposed legislations do allow for the use of proprietary software when
there is little choice otherwise.)
2) By outright banning proprietary software, we didn't compete based on
merit.  Instead we used non-technical means to negate the competition
process.  I'd rather win fairly, and people choose our software
sincerely.
3) Most societies aren't ready for the Open Source Software paradigm. 
The vast majority of IT service providers and developers have no clue
what it is or how the community works.  They will not transform
overnight.

I personally think that this attempt will fail in California and some
countries, but other countries like Peru it may succeed mainly because
of economics.  They have large incentives to stop the constant
exportation of IT cash to America, when it could be instead be used to
stimulate their domestic economy.

Don't get me wrong, I LIKE the idea of everyone using Open Source
Software.  I just don't think this is a realistic way of reaching that
goal at least in the USA.  However... this is a good publicity stunt...
and we will get a lot more attention because of it.

Warren Togami
warren at togami.com