By Tom S. Noda
December 1, 2007

Congressman Teodoro Casiño, author of House Bill 1716, or otherwise known as the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) act of 2007, declared the bill’s legislation is essential to countering the alleged monopoly of proprietary software firms among IT users.

“Mandating FOSS would give the law the necessary tools and teeth to make that radical shift toward cyber freedom and democracy,” Casiño says, noting the state of monopoly of the global and local software industry leads to stagnation and mediocrity.

“Imagine if only Ilocanos were allowed to cook pinakbet, then we wouldn’t have the wonderful versions of the dish that every household, province, region or sidewalk karinderya may develop, because then that would be illegal,” Casiño says in his analogy of the proprietary licensed software to a local Filipino dish.

The lawmaker reported the FOSS bill faces a stiff battle in Philippine Congress with private software firm Microsoft using its money and influence to knock out the proposed law.

“Just to illustrate, our e-Learning Center in Congress is paid for by Microsoft. The House leadership is planning to provide all congressmen and women with free laptops, bundled with Microsoft software, of course. They have the money and the pull to demolish or water down the FOSS bill,” he says.

Casiño made his public appeal and revelations while delivering his keynote address in front of more than 60 delegates at the recent Computerworld Philippines Executive Briefing entitled: “Deploying Open-Source Software.”

Promotion vs. Mandate
The lawmaker justified the importance of mandating FOSS, saying that taking the well-paved road of “free choice” would render the bill as nothing more than a promotional brochure for FOSS.

He claims no amount of promotion or inter-office memoranda encouraging FOSS usage can match the “massive, multi-billion dollar, Hollywood-style glitz and glamour of proprietary software marketing.”

Casiño said the reason for mandating FOSS in government is that ordinary rank-and-file government employees don’t have the luxury of “free choice” between open office and Microsoft.

“They simply use the software provided to them by the office,” he says. “The default software is Microsoft and the ordinary office worker will resist migration to FOSS, unless ordered to do so, simply because it will entail the inconvenience of relearning what he or she has been so used to since college.”

FOSS Advantage
Casiño preached a FOSS law would be beneficial for the Philippines since it would mandate the use of software that is “cheaper, more flexible, development-friendly, interoperable, stable, and safe.”

He quoted a report by the International Open Source Network (IOSN), a center of excellence for FOSS in the Asia-Pacific Region, regarding the strategic benefits of FOSS. These are: Developing local capacity and industry; reducing imports, thereby conserving foreign exchange; enhancing national security; reducing copyright infringements; and enabling localization.

Free Choice
In reacting to critics who labeled his FOSS bill as “Stalinist” and “myopic,” Casiño clarified the bill does not prohibit the use of proprietary software in government. He cited Section 5.5 of the bill, which states that it allows the use of proprietary software in extraordinary circumstances, where no FOSS equivalent meets the needs of a particular government agency or program.

“For example, for word processing, spreadsheet or Internet browsing applications, which are the most common software in government used by more than 98% of all users, I cannot see why we can’t immediately migrate to Open Office. I’ve done it. My office has done it. The Supreme Court has done it. Many LGUs have done it already,” he says.

Yet for specialized applications, Casiño says the case could be argued that no equivalent FOSS can be had. “This has to be justified through an open, public hearing called for that purpose.”

Casiño says that if the FOSS bill is approved, “free choice” is not at all hampered. “We just want to make sure that free choice is also an informed choice.”

However, similar to other legislated laws, Casiño says the only problem—should the FOSS bill get enacted—would be in mustering the necessary political will to follow the law. He announced that in the next few months, he would be pushing for the FOSS bill to become a law.

Only recently, several FOSS advocates revealed some private software firms are now using marketing funds to mislead enterprises toward adopting the open source strategy. They said that actions being done against FOSS are being done through “sponsored studies, piracy of open source developers, and bold press releases.”

Possibly Related Posts:

• Business Strategies Through Visual Data
• Achieving Growth Through Analytics
• Getting the Right Balance of Application Outsourcing Providers to Succeed
• Pacing with Security Evolution
• More Threats Yet to Come

 Print This Post