On Tue, 2006-09-19 at 16:03 +0800, Dean Michael Berris wrote: > > > > > The proposition is, that we should *NOT* worry about FOSS in the > > > government _yet_ (or promoting it further via legislation) because as > > > I've already stated, it's needless. > > > > So saving money is needless. Yeah, right... > > > > I thought the bill wasn't about saving money... > > If the point was to save money, then let's require government to not > use electricity anymore, and stick with gas powered lanterns, pencils > and paper. ;-)
That's even more expensive a solution :-) > But seriously, if using FOSS was just about saving money, then I > believe Government is being misled to think that FOSS is Free *and* > cheap. The software is FREE as in free speech - government can take the FOSS code and adapt it to the needs of other government branches if it so desires. This saves from the effort of buying the same stuff all over again for X government agency - instead this can be used to pay programmers to reuse the code and tailor it to X government agency. Contrast this to the proprietary solution, wherein if you're X government agency - you buy software license for some stuff that Y government agency may be using, then hire programmers to customize said software. If that isn't saving money... > > > > > what government needs is just Free as in Free Beer software, and not > > > Free as in Freedom. > > > > But why not get both when both are available already? > > > > FOSS saves money NOW. > > This depends really. You'll be paying third party VAS providers to > install the new FOSS on the old systems -- spend money on training the > people, support and maintenance, all that jazz. If you think > Government will put an IT department on every agency and expect it to > hire hordes of System Administrators, technicians, and whatnot, then > tell me again how that will make government save money NOW. > Even with proprietary software you'd still spend money on training people, doing support and maintenance, and all that jazz. What you save though is the monetary cost of licenses, which imho, doesn't exist in FOSS solutions. That saves money NOW. In the long run, you even save more money by doing away with the cost of licenses. > > It also is generally better except in certain > > fields where proprietary software has a lead (a lead which can soon > > disappear). That's doesn't justify making excuses not to use FOSS now > > where it can be. > > > > I think we're looking at different aspects of FOSS here if you think > FOSS is generally better than proprietary software. FOSS just has a > different license -- and the license doesn't make the piece of > software "magical" or "waaaay better" than other solutions. It may not be "waaay better" for "some" corporations, but think of it on the side of government: you get FOSS software, you could tailor it to infinitity without procuring X more licenses. This is absent from proprietary software. That is the "magic" there. > > The statuis quo which you effectively promote is a leeching government > > coffers. It has to be addresses now, not later. Making excuses not to do > > so is needless. > > > > Remove the Pork Barrel. That should save the government money. This is irrelevant to the FOSS bill. -- Paolo Alexis Falcone [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________ Philippine Linux Users' Group (PLUG) Mailing List plug@lists.linux.org.ph (#PLUG @ irc.free.net.ph) Read the Guidelines: http://linux.org.ph/lists Searchable Archives: http://archives.free.net.ph
