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Linux Business

South African Gov't Declared An Open Source Zone 562

Posted by timothy from the nice-to-own-what-you-pay-for dept.
fungai writes "The Business Day reports that the South African government has decided to adopt open source software and develop support programs with local research institutes and universities. The CIO of the State IT Agency says: 'The logic for open-source is so compelling that after a year of debates we decided to stop talking and declare government an open-source zone.'"
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South African Gov't Declared An Open Source Zone More

South African Gov't Declared An Open Source Zone

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  • It will be interesting (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Evanrude ( 21624 ) <david@nospaM.fattyco.org> on Monday January 20, 2003 @11:01PM (#5124131) Homepage Journal
    It will be interesting to see what kinds of programs they come up with and how soon other countries follow suite.
    • It will be interesting to see what kinds of programs they come up with

      Indeed - software programs or bureaucratic programs.

  • CIO ? (Score:4, Funny)

    by CySurflex ( 564206 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @11:02PM (#5124137)
    The South African government has a CIO ? Next thing they'll be offering stock options and buying aeron chairs.

  • Intellegent thought (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tuba_dude ( 584287 ) <tuba.terry@gmail.com> on Monday January 20, 2003 @11:02PM (#5124140) Homepage Journal
    I love it! Finally a government entity seems to understand the benifits.

    However, Microsoft's response was the kicker.
    "It's a very popular technology today, but ultimately it's not a sustainable business model. What happens when the developers who find it exciting today move on to something which will pay the bills?"

    I almost fell off my chair laughing. It's interesting seeing them confuse state operations and business...Maybe they've been suckling (sp?) on the US government a bit too hard?

    • It's interesting seeing them confuse state operations and business...

      Actually, the Microsoft rep was probably referring to the developers not being able to sustain themselves on open-source, which (correct or not) does make sense. Their "rhetorical" question, on the other hand, is a no-brainer [slashdot.org].

      • Re:Intellegent thought (Score:5, Insightful)

        by TummyX ( 84871 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @11:18PM (#5124250)
        So? What if Microsoft decided that they want to move on an abandon a product? You're screwed there.

        At least with OSS you can just contract out someone to continue the work.

        Any many OSS projects are paid for directly or indirectly by various business entities anyway.

        • So? What if Microsoft decided that they want to move on an abandon a product? You're screwed there.

          While with open source, there'll always be a way to continue it, right? That's pretty much what I was saying. [slashdot.org] RTFLink before replying, please.

        • At least with OSS you can just contract out someone to continue the work.

          This statement neglects two key issues regarding most businesses (all but the Fortune 1000).

          1) [Insert Business Here] is not in the business of maintaining millions of lines of code (be it an OS, Web Application Server, Office Productivity Apps, or even a simple Mail Client).

          2) [Insert Business Here] generally doesn't have the resources or funds to continue the project.

          The exception to this rule is a custom app configured for the business (like a large accounting package). Then having the source code is most critical.

          Also, within the context of the article I do agree that any non-classified software that the government create's should be BSD'd for both the public and businesses to benefit.
          • Hmm I disagree. Companies spend a lot of money of software. Both buying and making inhouse software. If there was a business case for modifying some OS software (e.g. it is projected to save X thousands of dollars) I see no reason why the company would hesitate.

            And companies can afford it - the investment is usually worth it.

          • Re:Intellegent thought (Score:5, Insightful)

            by rseuhs ( 322520 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @03:55AM (#5125401)
            You have no idea, right?

            You know why Microsoft's software is expensive?

            First, 70% to 80% of Windows/Office is profit margin.

            Then we have sales and marketing.

            Then we have factories making CDs, packaging them up and sending them around the world where they are further distributed physically.

            Then we have all those "features" like WPA, Palladium, copy protection, purposely breaking formats to force people to upgrade, etc. which are not really needed in an OSS product.

            I'd be surprised if the cost to maintain Windows or Office is more than 2 or 3% of the retail price.

            Just one single developer can maintain even a larger project (hell, Linus still maintains the Linux kernel mostly himself - in his spare time) and the same or (if the project is really huge) another one can add the features you want.

            • Re:Intellegent thought (Score:5, Insightful)

              by Isofarro ( 193427 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @08:07AM (#5126001) Homepage
              You know why Microsoft's software is expensive?
              Then we have factories making CDs,

              Now this is a laugh when you think about it - if a government orders 10,000 copies of windows, what's the point of sending 10,000 copies of the same CD.

              Here Open Source makes so much sense. Download one copy, or order one copy on CD and install it on as many computers as you would like. Logical and simple.

            • Re:Intellegent thought (Score:3, Insightful)

              by tshak ( 173364 )
              First, 70% to 80% of Windows/Office is profit margin.

              At the surface by quickly glancing at the SEC filings one would assume this to be true. Don't get me wrong, Windows/Office are HUGE cash cows, but read prior threads from a few months ago that explain why this is not a correct conclusion.


      • You'd think with a population the size of that, they will never run out of programmers.

        • You can't count every one of a billion Africans as a potential programmer. Not everyone has electricity, for one thing. Of those who do, not everyone can afford a computer -- and there aren't a lot of libraries with public Internet access.

    • From the point of a single product, they have a good point. Eventually, the programmer will/might realize that he could have written the same program for Windows, and have made himself a living writing programs (outside of the rat race, might I add)

      At that point, the product will be left hanging.

      • Re:Intellegent thought (Score:4, Insightful)

        by gmack ( 197796 ) <gmackNO@SPAMinnerfire.net> on Monday January 20, 2003 @11:32PM (#5124328) Homepage Journal
        That depends on the reason for writing it in the first place.. was it to do something they needed done? Do they need it to make their own buieness function? Was it something just for fun?

        Or hey maybe they were making money off it.. many developers are actually payed by one copany or another. Redhat, SuSE, Mandrake, IBM and connectiva all pay developers.

        Then again so what if it does get dropped? It's not that hard to hire someone else to fix it.

        Then again it's not as if I've never had commercial products simply discontinued on a whim.
        At least with Open Source you have options after.

      • Re:Intellegent thought (Score:3, Insightful)

        by cranos ( 592602 )
        Yes the programmer might have realised that he/she could have written the same programme for Windows and then he/she will breathe a sigh of relief that they didn't. Not all developers are after the almighty dollar, nor are they willing to work with inferior tools.

        The other point you seem to miss is the fact that OSS software can lead to job creation, need a custom module for Apache? Hire a developer, need a more secure version of Sendmail? Hire a developer. The code is there for anyone to use, as opposed to waiting for the proprietry code to be updated and even then there is no garauntee that the new version will meet your needs.

        • Africa doesnt need jobs it needs an economy. (Score:4, Interesting)

          by HanzoSan ( 251665 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @12:00AM (#5124471) Homepage Journal

          Africa needs an economy. They have more than enough workers, what they need is infastructure, they need an OS, they need plenty of software which they can develop on their own considering they have unlimited people power,

          Its almost like China or India, yes they can make money making Windows software but they would make ALOT more money if they didnt have to pay for licenses, this would allow them to advance in the information age faster because even with a poor economy they'd be able to compete with and even surpass us in terms of software development and engineering.

          Robotics, AI, and alot of computer devices they create could be exported giving them a similar economy to that of Japan. Japan currently sells playstation 2 and electronics devices which require alot of programming, Africa has the ability to have an economy like this easily.

      • This is AFRICA not America (Score:5, Interesting)

        by HanzoSan ( 251665 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @11:54PM (#5124442) Homepage Journal

        The average African does not make the same amount of money as the average American.

        So when you say stuff about people in Africa somehow getting rich off of windows programs, you would be right if this were happening in 1995-99, but its 2003, theres no longer a shortage of programmers, the supply of programmers are endless and the supply of software is limited, at least in africa where the people cannot afford the software.

        Their best solution is to develop their own software using their own labor, and then they can build the technology they need to export to the USA and thats how they can REALLY make money.

      • Re:Intellegent thought (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Elwood P Dowd ( 16933 ) <judgmentalist@gmail.com> on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @01:03AM (#5124775) Journal
        You're trolling.

        Nevertheless:

        When you're the government, and you need a solution to deploy to a five thousand desktops, the money you spend on licenses could just as well be spent on OSS development. Then, when you deploy to ten thousand desktops, licenses cost nothing.

        The programmer *is* making a living writing programs: He's an employee of the South African government, rather than Microsoft. His spending power and expertise improves the economy of South Africa, not Washington state. If he quits, hire and train someone else. It's still a better investment than software licenses.

      • Re:Intellegent thought (Score:5, Interesting)

        by km790816 ( 78280 ) <[moc.liamekaens] [ta] [20xg3qhqw]> on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @01:32AM (#5124912)
        Interesting thought: What if the United States government, which is the largest single purchaser of MS software (if you include the military) spent all of their IT dollars on Open Source solutions?

        They could invest in nailing the problems they wish to solve with no worries about future price hikes and inter-op.

        What could 100s of millions a year (I'm guessing) properly invested do for big Open Source projects?

        Hmm...
    • The only "not sustainable business model" here seems to be Microsoft's! Any guessed on what Microsoft has planned to attempt to stem the flow of governments defecting to open source?
    • I almost fell off my chair laughing. It's interesting seeing them confuse state operations and business...

      All the more interesting as /. makes the same conflation(?), putting the story under `Linux Business'. More people are contaminated than you might have thought ;-)

    • They sound like Luddites to me.

      Cheers,
      -b

  • Non-registration / Archive Copy (Score:4, Informative)

    by Amsterdam Vallon ( 639622 ) <amsterdamvallon2003@yahoo.com> on Monday January 20, 2003 @11:02PM (#5124142) Homepage
    State to save billions on software
    Crippling licence fees will be avoided by using free open-source programs

    Information Technology Editor

    WHEN Microsoft introduced a new licensing model for its software late last year, simmering resentment within government finally boiled over.

    For months the State IT Agency had winced at the incessant expense of buying software licences for hundreds of thousands of staff spread across government departments. Now the agency has declared that it will ditch expensive brand name software in many cases and switch to opensource alternatives.

    The move should save at least R3bn a year, says agency chief information officer Mojalefa Moseki. The policy should also help to create a new generation of programmers skilled in developing their own applications.

    The beauty of open-source software is that its underlying code can be accessed so that end users can modify it to suit their needs or build new applications. Equally compelling for cashstrapped governments is that many of the programs are free, with suppliers making their money by supporting the systems.

    "Government spends close to R3bn a year on software licences alone," says Moseki. With support and upgrade costs added, the total bill was a punishing R9,4bn last year. "Barely a cent of that is spent in SA because all the companies like Microsoft, Sun, IBM and Lotus are multinationals, so the money goes abroad. SA is a consumer of software, but we can develop it ourselves."

    Moseki says the small-scale introduction of open-source in some departments has already saved R10m. To make sure a fullscale switch is sustainable, the agency will work with universities and private companies and set up a resources centre with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to help develop programming skills.

    SA has a pool of very talented software developers, and government's commitment to open- source will create an opportunity for them to flourish, he believes.

    CSIR CEO Sibusiso Sibisi agrees. "Our ultimate goal is to stimulate the birth of companies and an entire industry based on open source software," he said.

    Arguments that open-source software is too unstable to run mission-critical systems are proving groundless as the technologies have improved steadily, driven by talented developers eager to break free from costly bigname brands.

    Governments in France, Germany and Peru are advocates of open-source, along with the state authorities in California.

    The growing tide has persuaded companies including Sun and IBM to offer open-source, knowing they can still make money on the hardware to run it and ancillary services.

    Moseki says the departments using open-source software in SA have seen increased security and more up-time, as the software is supported internally with no need to call in an outside company to resolve any problems.

    Microsoft stands to lose heavily from government's move, although it will not specify how much business it earns from the state. And last year it launched a project to give free software to all 32000 government schools.

    Last week the company followed up with the surprise news that it will open its source code to governments worldwide so they can enhance the security of its software. That is a calculated move to entrench its position in government markets. But Microsoft's move has come too late to affect the agency's decision.

    "The logic for open-source is so compelling that after a year of debates we decided to stop talking and declare government an open-source zone," says Moseki.

    Microsoft's country manager Gordon Frazer argues that governments must evaluate each application individually rather than routinely opt for open-source over commercial software.

    "It's a very popular technology today, but ultimately it's not a sustainable business model. What happens when the developers who find it exciting today move on to something which will pay the bills?"

    He says there are higher expenses for the management, upgrading and security of opensource software.

    And while government's idea of training open-source developers is admirable, it will not create new jobs but will simply replace thousands of existing jobs for people who now work with proprietary software, he argues.

    Jan 20 2003 12:00:00:000AM Lesley Stones Business Day 1st Edition

    • Ya bloody hoo, at last. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by refactored ( 260886 ) <cyent@nOSPAM.xnet.co.nz> on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @12:06AM (#5124512) Homepage Journal
      it will not specify how much business it earns from the state

      I suspect not least amongst the .za governments reasons is :- the task of working out which licenses they have, and on which PC it is simply beyond them!

      They're a sitting duck for BSA.

      Whenever the BSA got shirty we would get memo's from the big bosses saying it was the workers responsibility to ensure that the software on their PC was licensed. ie. If they got stung, they would pass it straight on to the little guy. (Not that the bosses would actually buy a license for you to get your job done anyway....)

      This little guy happily switched to Linux and never looked back.

      I then tried to convince the rest of 'em to switch too. No luck. So if you can't change your organization, change your organization.... So I did, first out to commerce and then to another country.

      And that decision was good too...

      Ah well, it's good to see them waking up at last. Years too late, but better late than never...

      How much will the BSA lose from this? A lot less than they think. GOV.ZA has very little money to buy their gumph.

  • /me rolls the dice (Score:5, Insightful)

    by coene ( 554338 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @11:02PM (#5124143)
    "The logic for open-source is so compelling that after a year of debates we decided to stop talking and declare government an open-source zone"

    You have to love it when governments take a "why not" approach to innovation. It's something a lot of USA busineses (and government entities) could take a lesson from.

    • Re:/me rolls the dice (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Sgs-Cruz ( 526085 )
      I don't know about that... lots of debate is a good thing. People say that they wish the government made more 'snappy' decisions all the time, because we only ever hear about the times when a 'good' decision is delayed. When a bad decision is shrugged off by the due parliamentary process, we simply say, 'oh, democracy in action.'

      If totally open-source were good for the U.S. gov't (and you have to look at the whole picture, not just the fact that it would be good for Linux :), then I'm sure the bill would have come up at some point.

      Remember that the U.S. gov't is very different from the ZA gov't in terms of money to buy proprietary software, and control they have over the owners of said proprietary software. (Though with the amount of respect Microsoft is giving their conviction, this might not be true!!)

      • Re:/me rolls the dice (Score:5, Insightful)

        by tuba_dude ( 584287 ) <tuba.terry@gmail.com> on Monday January 20, 2003 @11:13PM (#5124211) Homepage Journal
        You make a valid point, but we here in the good ol' US of A like big companies. Individuals and individualists are terrorists these days, didn't you know? That and Microsoft (and offtopic, the RIAA, MPAA and friends) pays for a good portion of election campaign bills, among other things.
      • "control they have over the owners of said proprietary software"?

        I'm sorry, but I think it's the control owners of said proprietary software have over them that has prevented more open discussion/acceptance of open source software...
        • I'm sorry, but I think it's the control owners of said proprietary software have over them that has prevented more open discussion/acceptance of open source software...

          Get OpenOffice to spell-check around em-dashes and placement of bookmarks in PDFs, and you'll do more to help OSS and harm MS than any number of irate /. comments could ever do.

          Then again, I just downloaded OoO 1.0.2... maybe it works now... (yeah, right...)
    • Here's the thing: America used to be on the bleeding edge on innovation. We used to take risks. Now money is in the hands of a privilaged few, and they don't want to risk losing it.

      If America in the 1800s were like America now, we'd have a world-renouned gunsmith academy, but no such thing as interchangeable parts. Automobile manufacturing would be a highly skilled and paid industry.

      People with money now see too much risk in using open source software. They've been fed too much FUD from microsoft and they keep buying their software, becuase if it ain't broken, they don't want to fix it.

      • "...becuase if it ain't broken, they don't want to fix it."

        Sorry, don't mean to be an ass, but shouldn't that read "...because if it ain't broken beyond repair...?"

        I don't know about the rest of you, but Windows for me is like an old portable CD player. It works, but you have to shake it a bit before the disc starts spinning.

      • Now money is in the hands of a privilaged few, and they don't want to risk losing it.

        Are you fscking kidding me? Are you referring to the last two years, or the last two centuries?

        From 1997 - 1999, anyone with an idea and the balls to walk into a VC's office could walk out with a pile of cash. Privilidged few, my ass. We're in a recession right now, but even so, the opportunities available for low-to-middle class Americans are absolutely staggering compared to what they were two centuries ago.

        But I'm sure you've personally spent your entire adult lifetime toiling in a 19th century factory, so what do I know.

        • Re:/me rolls the dice (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Those years (97-99) weren't about innovation at all. They were about get-rich-quick schemes and screwing stupid people out of money with BS techno-babble.

      • US Navy goes the other way (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Camel Pilot ( 78781 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @12:07AM (#5124515) Homepage Journal
        The Navy/Marine corp is presently going in the opposite direction. They are launching a large scale contract (NMCI) that restricts all Navy IT to MS and MS solutions. No room for further innovations with other platforms or the application of appropiate technology to the task, just a rosey pink homogeneous MS world. Under the new system you are not even allowed to connect a BSD, Linux, embedded network device or even a MAC machine to the network anywhere.

        At the Navy labs, this one size fits all approach is even more short sighted and foolish. The upper echelon has yet to catch on that the network is the backbone or the infrastructure that enables an ever increasing plethora of monitoring systems, data acquisition and control systems, collabration and communication mechanisms, etc. As more and more devices become Web enabled the Navy has effectively locked itself out in the cold and crawled in bed with built in obsolesce - not to mentioned left itself vulnerable to an attack or virus that would spead like wild fire in a homogeneous network.

        • Meanwhile, the Army is going to a different, equally proprietary system.
          http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,21725,00 .html
        • ...otherwise, the US could be in serious trouble.

          I'm not kidding. There ought to be a Federal law against this sort of thing, for government agencies. In the commercial world, when a company makes dumb technical decisions, in the worst case, it can go out of business. When the US Navy makes dumb technical decisions, it could literally cost people's lives, and affect national security.

          This gives new meaning to phrases like "no-one ever got fired for buying IBM (or Microsoft)". No-one ever got killed by allowing heterogenous systems.



      • So risk didnt cost anything. Building railroads? FREE! So of course if you can use native americans, blacks, asians and other slaves to do all the labor, well of course you can take more risks than you do now.

        Now someone has to be PAID, risks cost money.

        Now if you talk about the early 1900s you have more of a point.

        If US companies want to take risks, it could be the last risk they ever take.
      • If it ain't broken, it shouldn't be fixed. The problem here is that it is broken but nobody with the money realizes it. The rest of your comment is very true. The situation is broken, and does need fixing.

    • Re:/me rolls the dice (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yes, it was certainly innovative when the South African government declared that AIDS doesn't exist and is just a figment of the imagination. Presumably they used the same sort of 'logic' to arrive at this decision.

  • Recent developments (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Amsterdam Vallon ( 639622 ) <amsterdamvallon2003@yahoo.com> on Monday January 20, 2003 @11:10PM (#5124193) Homepage
    I think that after 9/11, many government, businesses, and ordinary people suddenly realized that those who they previously trusted may not be as honest as they may have originally thought.

    With this came a resurgence and rediscovery, one may say, of careful and methodical research into the computer systems and software employed by particular groups.

    The questioning was the next and natural step.

    What interests does company X have in my government Y, and what security holes could exist as a direct relation to these private and close-lipped secrets?

    Would we enjoy more safety and flexiblity with an Open Source solution developed in-house by our own experts?

    And, aside from security, many governments and businesses just didn't have the same funding as they did before the Dot Bomb and 9/11 disasters occurred.

    So, this reevaluation of Open Source can only be good for both us as computer programmers and businesses/governments as users of software.

  • Top quote: (Score:5, Interesting)

    by achurch ( 201270 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @11:10PM (#5124196) Homepage
    "It's a very popular technology today, but ultimately it's not a sustainable business model. What happens when the developers who find it exciting today move on to something which will pay the bills?"

    Well, that's an easy one: the high school and college kids who were watching the developers will take their places. Duh.

  • Heh. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 )


    > The logic for open-source is so compelling that after a year of debates we decided to stop talking and declare government an open-source zone.

    Someone must not have found it too terribly compelling, or else they wouldn't have spent a whole year debating it.

    At any rate, it's easy to imagine that billg is packing his bags for another emergency handout run right now.

  • ... is "No Propietary Software" signs everywhere sort of like the no smoking signs with the circle around it and the line going through =P

  • SA more progressive than the US? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by blackcoot ( 124938 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @11:16PM (#5124235)
    (Note: this isn't a flame or a troll, just the obersvations of a South African living in the US)

    It appears that, in general, South Africa has leapt way ahead of the US in a large number of policy areas, not just Open Source. They've got fundamental protections in their constitutions which are significantly stronger than those in the US (for example, you can't discriminate based on percieved sexuality, domestic partnerships are law, with same sex marriages in the works, etc.) Now, to be fair, I haven't been back in SA since the '94 elections, so I don't know how much of the new government's legislation has made it into actual practice, but it does seem odd that SA is apparently overtaking the US in terms of the general "cluefulness" of the administration.

    • Re:SA more progressive than the US? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by God! Awful 2 ( 631283 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @11:39PM (#5124369) Journal

      It appears that, in general, South Africa has leapt way ahead of the US in a large number of policy areas, not just Open Source. They've got fundamental protections in their constitutions which are significantly stronger than those in the US (for example, you can't discriminate based on percieved sexuality, domestic partnerships are law, with same sex marriages in the works, etc.)
      90% of the Western world is ahead of the US on social issues like this. South Africa may have been the longest hold out in the segregation battle, but the US isn't far behind. What other Western country is ruled by a powerful religious lobby?

      -a

    • Uhh No (Score:2, Informative)

      by glrotate ( 300695 )
      From the South Arrican Institute of Race Relations [sairr.org.za]:


      "South Africa has among the highest rates of violent crime in the world. Calculated per 100 000 of the population in 1995, only two countries had higher murder rates - Colombia and Swaziland. The US has a murder rate eight times lower than that of South Africa. Rape figures are the highest in the world, as are South Africa's reported cases of robbery and violent theft."


      Real progressive.

    • Not really a fair statement. This will depend on which U.S. state you are talking about, some will be more progressive than others and will match or exceed the "progress" (which is always up for debate) you describe above. The administration of government elected by a progressive population will pass progressive laws, and that elected by a conservative population will pass conservative ones. This is as true for South Africa as it is for America; American law is simply reflective of the voters that exercise their power.
    • for example, you can't discriminate based on percieved sexuality, domestic partnerships are law, with same sex marriages in the works, etc

      Good, so I can get a tax discount for marrying two women, or even my dog now, right?

      Seriously, I'm not trolling, but to me the entire concept of marraige tax benefits is for the purpose of having a family, which science has dictated quite plainly that it takes a male and female. Now, if two people, or even three people want to be life partners, that's their choice. I just don't see why they should get a "family" tax benefit.
      • It's not just tax benefits. With marriage comes something like 2743 rights in the state of Virginia (your mileage will vary state to state) including shared insurance benefits, hospital visitation rights (which is a big one), power of attourney rights, etc. Quite frankly, the tax benefit doesn't make such a huge difference when you've got another mouth (or two or three) to feed.

      • Re:SA more progressive than the US? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by radish ( 98371 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @04:44AM (#5125504) Homepage
        By that argument, why should a childless hetrosexual couple have a tax benefit? Or indeed, why should a homosexual couple with an adopted child not get a benefit? In the UK we have a benefit which is paid out to parents (all parents) per child. That seems like a sensible approach if you really are concerned about "making families". On the other hand, if you're simply trying to attach some entirely false special meaning to a hetrosexual pairing then I'm afraid you're on to a loser.

  • Amazed at common sense. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by eniu!uine ( 317250 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @11:17PM (#5124246)
    I am very pleased at the news that open source software will be used in SA, but it's certainly not amazing. What's incredible is that more governments haven't switched to open source. There is excellent software out there being given away for free, but people are still using inferior software and paying money for it. It only stands to reason that eventually all smart governments will adopt the 'don't pay for what we could get for free' policy. The Microsoft reaction seemed entirely panic-driven(giving software to schools), and their argument is weak. They are right about one thing though, open source software in itself(i.e. just the software) isn't a sustainable business model. Of course that's completely irrelevant. What's relevant is that the software continues to advance in leaps and bounds, is free and is showing no signs of stopping. Let the open source companies worry about business models, I'm only concerned with my free software that I'm free to change however I like.

  • Isn't this amazing that this decision come around the Dr. Martin Luther King Day. I think it is great :) Freedom and Free+OpenSource Software. It can not get any better than that. In the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King:
    Early morning, April 4.
    A shot rings out in the Memphis sky.
    Free at last, they took your life,
    But they could not take your pride.
  • Dozen of one, half dozen of the other...
  • MS Gordon Frazer said

    "It's a very popular technology today, but ultimately it's not a sustainable business model. What happens when the developers who find it exciting today move on to something which will pay the bills?"

  • A slightly different perspective (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20, 2003 @11:28PM (#5124310)
    One of the areas for future growth for Microsoft was developing countries, so this is an interesting trend. If developing countries adopt OSS policy, that severely limits the growth potential and forces microsoft into a position it doesn't want to be in. Wall Street ranks companies based on growth, and if growth slows or stops all together, it looks bad. Does this mean the company is bad? No, just that wall street thinks in twisted ways and down grades the stock from buy to hold.

    Microsoft is still trying to figure out web services and .NET. The first version of .NET has a lot of improvements over IIS 3 and 4, but it still isn't enterprise class. For small and medium business with minimal needs, it's fine. For serious enterprise apps, it's still has a long way to go.

    If microsoft can't get windows and .NET up to enterprise class in 5 years, they can forget about it happening. I know first hand many large financial corps are moving towards clustered/grid approach to next generation platform, so there's only a small window for microsoft to break in. If they delay be 2 years or more, linux will become the defacto clustering platform for PC hardware.

    • "If microsoft can't get windows ... up to enterprise class"

      Linux's clustering capabilities are indeed better than those of Windows, but only in the engineering and scientific calculation space.

      You seem to be overlooking the enterprise database [tpc.org] space, where Microsoft has thoroughly smacked-down the competition, both in overall performance and price-performance.

      For "enterprise" computing, what is more important: scientific calculations or databases? I think you will find the latter more critical to the overwhelming majority. Many, if not most, enterprises do not perform the kinds of engineering and scientific calculations that grid computing targets, while most would be hard-pressed to find a company that does not use a database.

      I'm not trying to ridicule the apparent success of linux in this space, but don't delude yourself into thinking that this is the be-all and end-all of computing just yet.
    • All of Microsoft's growth markets are already stopped by Linux:

      On servers Windows should have been the Unix-replacement (and in the mid-90's it was), but now Unix-shops migrate to Linux and Windows-shop also start to migrate away....

      WinCE should have been the hot embedded OS for the 21st century. But with the noticable exception of PDAs, it isn't doing too well and can't even replace DOS. While DOS ran on about half of embedded systems in the mid-90's less than 1/4 of todays projects are using WinCE. (I'm working in embedded systems BTW.)

      Microsoft is currently in the phase of being stripped of all their growth opportunities and is reduced to their core markets. Those will be the next to go.

  • They just got a get outta jail free card...

  • Logic flaw? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Flamesplash ( 469287 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @11:35PM (#5124347) Homepage Journal
    "The logic for open-source is so compelling that after a year of debates we decided to stop talking and declare government an open-source zone," says Moseki.

    If it was so compelling why did it take a year of debates? Why did the debates not come across this compelling solution, and have to stop, not decide, and just choose one?

    Maybe the person was misquoted but it sounds a bit illogical.
  • Can we expect to see Bill Gates making a trip to South Africa now? After India just said they were leaning towards it, MS wandered over there carpetbagging "Free" software. I garuntee that within the week, there'll be an MS rep on the Dark Continent preaching the joys of their software. Let the countdown begin.
    • As a South African I am fully aware that we have good programmers and a lot of open source followers.I myself use Linux and FreeBSD as much as possible. Even at home. The rest of the world usually find it very weird to hear that we even have computers. We might not be the US , but our cities look just like any other city in Europe. But with our budget and problems, we need to take steps like this to save costs.This is excellent and I'm very glad to hear that our govenment made that choice.
      The funny thing is that recently Microsoft offered a couple of schools (in rural areas where they just recently got running water) *free* copies of MS-Office, but the government made their calculations and realized that the schools would not be able to afford the licenses for Windows and the computers, so they said.Thanks , but no thanks. That was funny to see MS's publicity stunt backfire like that.

  • Three thoughts to repudiate Microsoft FUD in this (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20, 2003 @11:47PM (#5124403)

    (1) Open-source isn't a "sustainable business model?" So, according to Microsoft, forcing annual upgrades and software subscription on businesses IS a sustainable business model? In the now-infamous Peru letter, didn't Microsoft state that sales make up only a small portion of the overall software cost -- support, integration, and customization make up a far larger percent. That sounds like a sustainable business model to me. Being a US school district that received an audit threat letter from their marketing department, we sure aren't impressed with Microsoft's business model anymore. That's why we switched to StarOffice on 1000 PCs last fall (grand total cost, $25.00)

    (2) What happens when "the developers ... move on to something which will pay the bills?" Well ... either (a) others keep the project open, (b) you hire programmers yourself to keep the project going (and reap the rewards), or (c) you yourself learn to program and keep the project going. Tie in with #3 below.

    (3) What happens when "the developers ... move on to something which will pay the bills?" Well ... what happens when proprietary software is pulled from the market and no longer supported? My school district has a pile of software (as I do at home, for many years) that's been abandoned by their owners. I remember paying $$$ for Lotus Magellan back in the early 90s - incredible software, became abadonware within a year. I could name many more -- I work in education, we a lot of our software gets abandoned over time. You're out your investment. I guess the business model didn't work in those cases???

    The Microsoft FUD machine is really revving up ... but dominoes are still starting to fall.
    • It seems every time a "big time" Open Source story like this appears on Slashdot, all the posters turn into blind zealots.

      Sure, this is great news - but that's no reason to discount what Microsoft is saying.

      Microsoft may be guilty of a lot of things, but sofar I agree with the "paying the bills" statement. There's scarce few major success story from any developers coding Open Source software alone - but yet there are many successful proprietary developers.

      It seems to me that Open Source software works best when the collaborators are working on behalf of different companies on the one piece of software. That is, the businesses themselves are not reliant on the software, but the collaborative development benefits all those involved.
    • "That's why we switched to StarOffice on 1000 PCs last fall (grand total cost, $25.00)

      So the people who managed the deployment were free? How about the user training? How about the lost productivity time as end users got used to the new app? How about the conversion problems on the few especially complex documents star office struggles with?

      It's been said before, and here it is again... free software is only free if your time is.

  • Saving lives? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by egoff ( 636181 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @11:47PM (#5124408)
    especially considering the high costs of HIV/AIDS treatments, anything this government can do to same money in sensible ways is a much, much bigger plus than merely its effect of the open source community, or /. world. People are dying at incredible rates because of a lack of education (costs money) and treatment (costs money). Excellent idea.

  • Shortsighted and blinkered (Score:4, Insightful)

    by christophersaul ( 127003 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @12:33AM (#5124643)
    I feel it's nonsense to declare any governemnt department or private institution an 'open source' zone, if the implication is that only open source solutions will be considered.

    What happens when they need functionality that the open source world doesn't offer. I'm thinking of things like the scalability and availability features you get from the big Unix guys (and no, sticking 100 Dells together is not always the answer for big systems). What about when something like SAP, Oracle Apps, Siebel, etc, etc is required?

    Support issues and costs are not instantly solved just because you can look at the source code. That is utterly irrelevant to most IT managers. The last thing govt IT workers I know want to be told is that they no longer need that support contract - they can just look at the code man'. That simply doesn't hack it in a large number of situations. If it does work, then use it, but it shouldn't be the sole policy.

    No IT solution should be dismissed out of hand, whether closed or open.
    • As a South African all I can say is, In the years of boycots and trade embargo's we have survived and innovated without the help of overseas companies and technologies. South Africa probebly has more raw talent then most 1st world countries, and I see it everyday in my work.

      I have high hopes of this move from the govornment and if there is needs we will develop it ourselvs if need by. that is afterall the strength of linux. scratch your itch.
      Just because we are on the southern tip of Africa doesn't mean we need the rest of the world to write code for our functionality.

    • Re:Shortsighted and blinkered (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fferreres ( 525414 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @02:01AM (#5125038)
      What happens when they need functionality that the open source world doesn't offer.

      That doesn't happen. Open Source is not a kind of product, but what under what conditions you will accept to purchase software. If the seller never let's you own the software you are funding then the Goverment can't buy it (not even to self support it if the developer drops the product).

      Remember, there are hundreds of rules that must be followed if you want to be a goverment provider. This is just one more of the requirements, and one that makes a lot of sense.

      Why pay billions every year to end up owning nothing, getting more dependant on a foreing monopolist. Putting billions and billions on open source will really be a bargain: nobody can charge you ever again for it, nor force you to upgrade, nor lock you into it. And the pools of countries investing in Open Source ("Public Goods") will grow, and these funds are "additive"...

      MS has done great things, and keeps doing great things, but "the world" no longer wants to pay the monopolistic rent, they realized they want to pay for the cost of production. And they get "National Security", a local software develoment markets and a better current account as a bonus.

  • A serious question... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by boomgopher ( 627124 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @12:58AM (#5124747) Journal
    Is this move by South Africa, People's Rep. China, et al. really a big win for the Open Source movement, or is it just governments taking free stuff?

    Maybe I'm being a cynic and/or misunderstanding, but I'm not expecting some of these governments to actually contribute anything back to OSS. I half expect some of them to end up violating any licensing the code is released under.

    • Re:A serious question... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jbolden ( 176878 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @02:05AM (#5125048) Homepage
      Why? Government universities have a long track record of giving their software back to the community. Government agencies inside the US were actively improving Linux before they were stopped due to lobbying. The government of Germany is funding work that is going into KDE which will be available to everyone.

      I don't see any evidence at all that governments aren't willing to widely share code. Their perspective is likely any of the other major players: if they don't share the code then they have no chance of getting the code in the main tree and they have repatch every new release which is an impossible amount of work.

    • Re:A serious question... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by pjrc ( 134994 ) <paul@pjrc.com> on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @02:44AM (#5125200) Homepage Journal
      ...but I'm not expecting some of these governments to actually contribute anything back to OSS.

      Time and time again, people have tried this and failed again and again. When the primary goal is to simply have a good program to USE (not resell to others), it just doesn't work not contributing back. Many have tried this and regretted it.

      What inevitably happens is the "official" project improves, both fixing bugs and including new features. The private code diverges from the public version, even if only in minor ways, it becomes a headache when a patch doesn't apply cleanly. Whomever "maintains" the private code needs to reimplement the improvements that are deemed critical from the public code, and as time goes on this becomes more and more hassle.

      Often the private changes are contributed back into the public version, simply because that is the only viable way to "maintain" the application over time. Sometimes, the private version stagnates or diverges too far. Either way, the lesson learned by an organization who's primary purpose is simply using the software is that it's in their own self interest to merge their improvements back into the public project, where they will be maintained and tested together with all future improvements contributed by others.

    • Re:A serious question... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by IamTheRealMike ( 537420 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @07:26AM (#5125884)
      Maybe I'm being a cynic and/or misunderstanding, but I'm not expecting some of these governments to actually contribute anything back to OSS.

      They probably won't, but that's expected. Maybe one day everybody will use Linux and most of our software will be open source, but I don't expect Joe and Jane User to start sending me patches. Right through the history of open source software, the answer has always been "if you want something, do it yourself". That worked because if you were using open source software, you were probably also a programmer.

      In the future, that won't work, because they'll just be users who even if they wanted to help out could not, because they don't have the skills.

      So the idea that if you use open source software you should contribute back is unsustainable really. I mean I use the road network, but I'm not expected to take part in filling holes, that's somebody elses job. Via taxes I pay them to do that for me.

      I think in the future maybe when users outnumber developers in linuxland you'll start seeing people scanning bugzillas for high voted bugs and offering to fix them in return for cash - you want CYMK in the GIMP? How much is it worth to you (and others). So, although I expect the majority of the work would still be done by volunteers, some of the other things would be contributed to by pure users, perhaps business and govt amongst them.

      I've often thought I'd try it after I leave university, in about 3/4 years. But I don't really know what the user:developer ratio will be then, and I wouldn't want to ask money for a feature when probably most of the people who'd contribute were themselves volunteer developers. That'd feel wrong. So, we'll have to see how it goes.

      Anyway, my point was that in the future very few users will actually be able to contribute back patches or docs or whatever directly, so I should think economic models will arise that let them do it indirectly. Governments probably will contribute back in this way.

  • Billions, Really ?? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by pjrc ( 134994 ) <paul@pjrc.com> on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @03:03AM (#5125252) Homepage Journal
    They're going to save BILLIONS. Wow.

    I was wondering how much that really is. Wandering over to XE.COM [xe.com], one US Dollar is equal to 8.9 South Africa Rand. The article's writing style seems a bit odd to me, but maybe that's how reporting is done in South Africa. Quoting....

    The move should save at least R3bn a year, says agency chief information officer Mojalefa Moseki.

    Now I'm wondering if "R3bn" is (roughly) equivilant to 337 million US dollars. Suppose the average PC gets $600(usd) installed on it, in windows, office, and a couple other apps. I just pulled that $600 out of a hat, but it seems a reasonably conservative (high) estimate of the amount of proprietary software you'd purchase per machine, on average.

    That'd put their annual software purchasing at (approx) 561600 PCs per year, or 1.12 million PCs in use on a 2-year Microsoft "software assurance" upgrade cycle.

    Is that reasonable, or did I add something up wrong?

  • OS: good for translating in SA's many languages (Score:4, Informative)

    by Reinout ( 4282 ) <reinout@@@vanrees...org> on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @03:03AM (#5125253) Homepage

    This story at kde.dot.org [kde.org] tells about an effort to translate KDE into all seven official languages in South Africa. No way any commercial program (like windows) is going to go through that effort.

    But open source software allows you to do it yourself. KDE is a nice one in that regard because they have good tools for translations and a good process for dealing with it. Before a big release is made, there's plenty of time for the translators to do their job. There is a "string freeze" to allow every translation to get completed.

    (Other big projects probably 've got something similar, KDE is just an example where I know it worked).

    So: You want the functionality badly? You pay for it (with time or money) and there is nothing to stop you from getting it! Nice, that open source software.

    Reinout

  • There's probably another reason behind OSS (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jthorpe ( 545911 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @04:22AM (#5125457)

    I have lived in South Africa for almost all my life and four years ago, got out of there and have moved to Sydney, Australia (like most who can, do!). The primary reason for this was the amount of corruption going on, largely due to the shocking government in South Africa (it's disheartening to say this, but SA is going like the rest of Africa).

    The RSA Government has obviously recognised OSS software as a means to reduce costs which is excellent news for them, and good for the OSS community, but it won't be sustainable for very long. Professionals are leaving RSA in droves and whilst it's cheap for the government to hire such people to manage Linux systems, corners will be cut everywhere and the South African government's greed will simply make the project fail (OSS software is good, but often requires a little more expertise to implement than other solutions which is ok in almost all circumstances).

    In the end, the corrupt government will screw things up so bad that they can't even afford to maintain even OSS systems.

  • MS SA pricing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by KeenestSA ( 643337 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @05:01AM (#5125547) Homepage
    As a South African business & games software retailer, I can tell you Microsoft is one of the few companies in the country who refuse to adjust their software prices based on the country they are dealing with. For example the Age of Mythology retails on average here at R 545 (exchange rate R8.80 = $1.00) Whereas a company such as Electronic Arts average PC Games retails for R 299 or even lower in SA. Taking Microsoft pricing policy forward to their business software and licenses, one can see they are horribly overpricing themselves in a country who can ill afford their high prices.

  • This is great news for Microsoft fans everywhere.. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by weave ( 48069 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @08:34AM (#5126127) Journal
    The more threatened Microsoft feels, the better their software will become. If they lock everyone in, watch the innovation grind to a halt. With the subscription model for software, they now have even less need to improve the products (since the upgrade income is no longer an issue, it's now guaranteed).

    Just look at IE. It's been almost two years since IE 6 came out, and that was just a minor upgrade over 5.0 and 5.5. When Netscape ruled the browser kingdom, IE was progressing at a rapid pace. Now if Mozilla, Safari, Opera, etc, make serious dents in market share, watch IE development take off again...

    Competition is a wonderful thing.

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