[luau] Testimony in Support of SCR109

[Warren Togami]

To: Senator David Y. Ige, Chair
    Senator Melodie Williams Aduja, Vice Chair

From: Warren Togami <warren at togami.com>
Technical Adviser, Hawaii Open Source Education Foundation
http://www.hosef.org
Technical Adviser, Mid-Pacific Institute
http://www.midpac.edu

Date: Tuesday, 1 April 2003
Subject: Support of SCR 109, Open Source Software


I am Warren Togami, currently a Junior in Computer Science at the
University of Hawaii, Linux software developer, and Technical Advisor to
the Hawaii Open Source Education Foundation.  HOSEF, incorporated 2002
for the purpose of educating Hawaii public & private schools, government
and businesses about the economic, social and practical benefits of Open
Source Software.  HOSEF's primary activity is to assist local schools
with computer labs, servers, training, support, and student mentorship
opportunities.  We are currently working with several Oahu public and
private schools, and soon Big Island public schools.  I am testifying in
support of SCR 109 because I feel it will benefit Hawaii's economy, save
taxpayer dollars and help to build Hawaii's tech economy.

Others in favor of this resolution will talk of the benefits of Open
Source Software.  These benefits are mainly security and reliability,
lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), and greater flexibility of being
able to modify the software to better suit needs of the user.  There are
also too numerous examples to of successes of Open Source Software in
government and business.

A few government precedents: Pentagon, defense, NSA, DARPA,
Universities, US Post office, County of Largo, Florida which uses almost
completely Open Source Software for all county worker computers, with
large taxpayer savings and high reliability.  Business success stories:
Wall Street firms, Walmart, Amazon.com, Google, local retail chain
PriceBusters

I will focus mainly on the economic and social benefits to Hawaii that
Open Source Software makes possible.

With the use of most traditional software, costs are usually in both
software licensing, and service.  Service would include customization,
support, training and maintenance.  If you look at most traditional
software, almost always they are mainland companies, meaning that
software licensing money is always being exported to the mainland.

In the Open Source Software model, the software licensing costs are
dramatically reduced or even zero.  This potentially leaves more money
available for the service and training of the software.  The software is
more flexible, and can be more easily customized to better suit the
needs of the organization.

These benefits of cost and effectiveness are themselves good, but what
is even more important to Hawaii is the "Who".  More money can be
reinvested in local service providers rather than money exports of
software licensing to the mainland.  There is a huge potential here for
Open Source Software to be a catalyst for growing the Hawaii tech
economy in custom software development, service, support and training,
thus slowing the constant brain drain.  Increasingly internationally,
governments, academia and business are turning toward Open Source
Software, this is the fastest growing IT industry.  Hawaii could be a
leader in this fastest growing industry, perhaps later exporting our
services to the mainland, or Asian countries where Open Source is
already very popular.

Furthermore this resolution, if passed, will find that due to the low
cost of entry and openness of code, there is a perfect competitive
market for service providers.  Unlike traditional software where you are
tied to a product and usually must pay their prices in the long term,
Open Source Software has no such vendor lock-in.  Firms must be
competitive in pricing and good service, or their competition will win. 
There is less incentive for traditional software companies, that are
often times monopolies, to be competitive in price and quality of
service.  Microeconomics would argue that fair market competition 
reduces dead-weight loss to society, thus is better for the economy and
and overall social welfare.

Bottom Line: More competitive prices, more competitive service.

Normally the choice of product or service is an operational issue that
would be improper for government to mandate.  This resolution is about
our government learning about Open Source Software, the benefits of
which are largely unknown to most people today.  We are believers in
fair market competition, and when government understands Open Source
Software, Open Source solutions can compete on a level playing field
with traditional software for government acquisitions.  We believe that
Open Source is more cost effective in many instances than traditional
software, and it will benefit the Hawaii economy in the long term.  For
these reasons I urge you to pass SCR 109.  Thank you for your time.

Warren Togami Jr.
warren at togami.com
Technical Adviser, Hawaii Open Source Education Foundation
http://www.hosef.org
Technical Adviser, Mid-Pacific Institute
http://www.midpac.edu