Coordinadores de Hipatia <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected],
>http://www.ipsnews.net/new_nota.asp?idnews=26485
>
>TECHNOLOGY-VENEZUELA:
>Heading Towards Free Software
>Humberto M�rquez
>
>CARACAS, Nov 30 (IPS) - Venezuela, following in Brazil's footsteps, has
>joined the club of countries that are adopting and promoting free or
>open-source software, in a bid to save money, achieve technological
>independence, and strengthen alliances among countries of the developing South.
>
>"We are working on a decree to make it official and obligatory in
>Venezuela to acquire and foment the use of free software in the public
>administration," Venezuelan President Hugo Ch�vez announced in a recent
>forum on technology held in Caracas.
>
>But government entities are not waiting for the presidential decree, and
>have already begun to migrate to open-source software programmes, which
>tend to be free of charge, unlike the proprietary operating systems sold
>by corporations like Microsoft and Unisys.
>
>"The Education Ministry's central database alone has saved 2.2 million
>dollars by adopting free software this year," Carlos Joa, president of the
>Bolivarian Foundation of Information Technology and Telematics (FUNDABIT),
>the Ministry's technological arm, told IPS.
>
>The Education Ministry's 2002-2007 plan contemplates the installation of
>380,000 computers in 10,000 centres that will serve 23,000 primary schools
>with a combined total of eight million students.
>
>At today's prices "some 400 million dollars in hardware will be spent, and
>if we had to pay licensing fees for proprietary software on top of that,
>we would perhaps have to spend the same amount or even more on
>administrative and educational operating systems," said Joa.
>
>Last year, the Venezuelan government paid 7.5 million dollars in software
>licensing fees, and another 12.5 million for data processing, said former
>planning minister Felipe P�rez Mart�.
>
>It is not yet possible to estimate the savings that will be involved in
>moving to free software in a country like Venezuela, which has a
>population of 25 million and a gross domestic product (GDP) of just over
>100 billion dollars.
>
>But Brazil, a pioneer in Latin America in switching to free software,
>which has a population of nearly 180 million and a GDP five times that of
>Venezuela, could spend four billion dollars a year on software, Antonio
>Albuquerque with the Brazilian Communications Ministry said at the "first
>World Forum on Free Technology" held Nov. 17-20 in Caracas.
>
>The decision by the government of left-leaning President Luiz In�cio
>"Lula" da Silva in Brazil to make the move to open-source software
>throughout the public sector is based on economic considerations, as well
>as the search for technological autonomy and the aim of sharing knowledge.
>
>Another reason is national security. The Lula administration argues that
>the government and armed forces in Brazil should not be reliant on the
>closed-source codes of proprietary software systems, which are hidden from
>the users, who therefore have no way of determining if there are
>"backdoors" vulnerable to attack by viruses and hackers.
>
>Free software "can stimulate the development of technologies to share with
>Argentina, Chile, China, India and other nations of the South, creating a
>technological foundation for South-South trade and cooperation,"
>Albuquerque commented to IPS.
>(...)
>
>The movement is based on the concept that "any computer user has the right
>to copy and modify the software he or she is using," Richard Stallman,
>considered the "founding father" of the free software movement in the
>United States, said at the Caracas forum.
>(...)
>
>"The United States wants that to be illegal, and is trying to get other
>countries to pass similar laws. That is why we owe a debt to Lula, who
>rejected that point in the FTAA (the negotiations for the Free Trade Area
>of the Americas)," he added.
>
>Brazil has also clashed with the United States over the issue of free
>software in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) multilateral trade talks.
>
>In May 2003, the local government in Munich, Germany's third-largest city,
>became the first public administration of a major city to adopt free
>software. (...)
>
>Of course none of this pleases the large corporations vending proprietary
>software. At a recent meeting of Asian government leaders in Singapore,
>Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer warned that governments could face a slate of
>lawsuits if they used Linux instead of Windows, for example.
>
>Linux violates more than 228 patents, said Ballmer, who added that "Some
>day, for all countries that are entering the WTO, somebody will come and
>look for money owing to the rights for that intellectual property."
>
>Besides, he added, "We think our software is far more secure than
>open-source software. It is more secure because we stand behind it, we
>fixed it, because we built it. Nobody ever knows who built open-source
>software."
>
>But governments that are moving to free software base that decision on
>other considerations. "Besides the cost advantage, there is the question
>of standardisation. We can create software adapted to our needs, without
>being tied to any specific brand, which makes it easier for us when it
>comes to a public tender for acquiring software," said Joa.
>
>On the other hand, "states and other users can modify the programmes as
>they wish. We don't have to ask permission each time we want to adapt
>them, and that gives us an advantage for unifying our systems and
>databases around the country," he added.
>(...)
>
>"Our slogan is 'as much free software as possible," he added. (END/2004)
Diego Saravia
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