Microsoft Lobby Denies the State of Chile Access To Free Software 159
walterbyrd writes: Fresh on the heels of the entire Munich and Linux debacle, another story involving Microsoft and free software has popped up across the world, in Chile. A prolific magazine from the South American country says that the powerful Microsoft lobby managed to turn around a law that would allow the authorities to use free software. "An independent member of the Chilean Parliament, Vlado Mirosevic, pushed a bill that would allow the state to consider free software when the authorities needed to purchase or renew licenses. ... A while later, the same member of the Parliament, Daniel Farcas, proposed another bill that actually nullified the effects of the previous one that had just been adopted. To make things even more interesting, some of the people who voted in favor of the first law also voted in favor of the second one. ... The new bill is even more egregious, because it aggressively pushes for the adoption of proprietary software. Companies that choose to use proprietary software will receive certain tax breaks, which makes it very hard for free software to get adopted."
Or you could blame Chile's MPs (Score:5, Insightful)
Who kowtowed to any lobbyist, regardless of which one it happens to be.
Re:Or you could blame Chile's MPs (Score:5, Insightful)
If they're anything like American legislators they just let the lobbyists write the laws so they are free to put on an act of serving their constituents.
Re:Or you could blame Chile's MPs (Score:5, Insightful)
It is difficult to tell from either the summary or TFA if that is even true. The summary is horribly written (what is a "prolific magazine"?) and uses the word "bill" and "law" interchangeably. ALL countries that have income tax allow software purchases to be deducted, so I don't see why that is thrown in. These tax deductions apply to Open Source (which is not necessarily zero priced) as well as proprietary software. TFA would be far better if it had more facts, and focused less on trying to generate outrage.
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Plus, just in the summary, two MPs are conflated, and following that, we have the idea being pushed that legislation to promote free software in government is somehow hobbled by more legislation to provide businesses with tax credits to offset software purchase costs?
Last I knew, the Chilean government wasn't a federation of businesses, and the second bill just makes commercial software look more like free software (in terms of purchase/license cost) to businesses.
Seems to me that the second bill could also
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Chile is often held up as being one of the more libertarian governments. As such it seems logical that it would often appear to be a federation of businesses.
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Chile is often held up as being one of the more libertarian governments. As such it seems logical that it would often appear to be a federation of businesses.
Some people are always claiming libertarian governments would mean big businesses would run everything. But if that were true, you have to wonder why big businesses never support libertarian ideas, but prefer big government instead.
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Big business does push for libertarian ideas, such as the idea that government stay off their back. Big business wants a small weak government in general, a government where they can control the regulations. The only time you see big business backing a bigger government is in areas where they prefer the workers to pay the bill or where they can take advantage of government as a customer (such as big military for big profits).
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Big business wants a small weak government in general
You REALLY need to supply some reference for that, because it's the opposite of everything I ever see.
a government where they can control the regulations
Yes, this *is* what they want, which by definition means a larger government: more regulation, more people to enforce the regulations, more rules, more profit protectionism, etc., etc. It's also the opposite of wanting a "small weak government".
They also want to control how government educates the kids (witness Bill Gates and his "Common Core"). They want wage slaves trained to perform the menial tasks
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Not to mention the whole military/industrial/prison/media-complex thing.
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It's not just software that can be deducted, it's anything at all that costs money which your business purchases. If your business purchases a coffee machine for employees to use, it can deduct that. It has nothing to do with software, it has to do with business expenses.
Proprietary software costs money, so of course it can be deducted. However, deductions aren't a good thing; they only reduce your tax liability. You come out ahead by simply not spending the money at all, and paying the tax on it. So i
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Huh, turns out I can blame both. Unexpected, I know, but I tried it, and I swear it worked.
Re:Or you could blame Chile's MPs (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, well I was responding to the tone of the summary that suggested that Microsoft was entirely at fault(as if lobbying in Chile were illegal or something), and didn't even make any room for the people actually pulling the vote. You can play as complex and nuanced a perspective as you want. I'm not opposed to that at all.
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I guess I think of it as if you leave your front door open, how much blame must you accept when thieves come in and take your stuff?
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Who kowtowed to any lobbyist, regardless of which one it happens to be.
Precisely! But when is this actually going to happen though? Clearly these politicians are corrupt and you can pay them to pass whatever laws you want. Going to every lobbyist and telling them not to offer bribes to politicians because the politicians will take them achieves nothing, the people of these countries need to stand up to corrupt politicians! If they weren't corrupt in the first place then lobbyists would have no power anyway.
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Oh come on, someone posted this exact sentiment over 20 minutes ago. I even replied to them, so you can't pretend it's because you don't see ACs. I'll repeat my reply for your benefit though:
Nuance is good. Please be nuanced about blame allocation, just don't let elected officials slide.
Publicly Funded Governments (Score:5, Insightful)
should always equal OSS/Free/Libre software.
- Usually better software quality.
- Prevents monetary kickbacks.
- No stupid license fees (an evil in itself)
In this regard, I am in agreement with RMS.
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And while that's probably a moderately popular opinion among people who work with software for a living, not IT workers get to vote on things too, and they don't care so much.
Democracy isn't meritocracy. And no one has invented a system of meritocracy that doesn't devolve into plutocracy or autocracy rather quickly.
Re:Publicly Funded Governments (Score:5, Insightful)
All government data needs to be open to auditing. Thus any government data needs to be stored in open formats that can be examined and manipulated with tools that can be sourced from multiple parties. Furthermore, the government should not be in the business of helping entrench particular software monopolies.
The nature of the binaries being run is really just a side show.
It's the DATA that needs to be open.
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That's a nice theory too. It's got a good reason for being wanted.
But what about military secrets?
What about ongoing stings of organized crime syndicates, and the undercover police who might threatened?
Are these exceptions? How many lives is this principle worth?
If(instead) these are valid exceptions, what objective criteria would you use to separate the valid secrets from the invalid?
People have been trying to solve the problem you just laid down a simplistic solution to for decades now.
Re:Publicly Funded Governments (Score:4, Interesting)
But what about military secrets?
What about ongoing stings of organized crime syndicates, and the undercover police who might threatened?
Both eventually become open records to the public anyway (after an expiration date, naturally), so aside from keeping such exceptional data sufficiently isolated from the public until their expiration dates (which happens anyway), what do you think detracts from GP's philosophy as per data format?
Back in the Bad Old Days, everything was typewritten on paper... a completely open data format. So...
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Sure, but now you're talking about what does happen. GGP was talking about what should happen, and I was challenging them to consider edge cases rather than laying out a simplistic ideology that "always works".
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In those cases, the data might need to be withheld for a time, but it should all eventually be made public and should be in an open and free format when that day comes.
It absolutely should NOT be in an undocumented format openable only by a piece of proprietary software that hasn't been available for 10 years.
In the unlikely event that there remain compelling reasons for secrecy decades later, there will also be a strong need to still be able to actually read the documents. Free and open formats win again.
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If stored in a closed format, and the format drops out of use, what do you do?
Has that even happened ever? You can open ancient MS Word documents in LibreOffice, every now and then you come across a formatting bug but that's hardly a big deal.
Failing to convert formats means you lose valuable data
No it means theoretically there is the possibility that some day you could lose valuable data, but it's actually highly unlikely because in reality you can still load up a copy of Word for Windows on Windows 3.1 in a VM. If you're suggesting they may be able to somehow scrub the internet of all software that can read those documents I'd say that
Re: Publicly Funded Governments (Score:2)
It happened in Australia a few years ago. Much of their data was in the format of an ancient word processor whose parent company was long bankrupt and which no available software could read.
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Re: Publicly Funded Governments (Score:2)
I remember it was a slashdot story at the time. It sort of kick started the whole open data movement so we're talking early 2000's sometime.
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I don't think this was the original story - but it's a pretty good example of the same thing:
http://www.sro.wa.gov.au/blogs... [wa.gov.au]
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Re: Publicly Funded Governments (Score:2)
Only if you can figure out what they are. Not all OS's used file extensions, not all extensions are easily recognizable today. And once you do you still need a legal copy of the software to put in that virtual machine. That may not be so easy to obtain if it hasn't been sold in decades.
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The data was collected at great expense and put on laserdisk (being the only medium big enough) by a propriatory data system which is now defunct, making the information collected unreadable.
So the hardware failed? Surely they could load up the software in a VM in the worst case but there's nothing you can do if the hardware is broken.
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This is true, but all things being equal, much of the data is held to ransom behind proprietary format at present.
"Open" implies that the format is accessible without prejudice ; beyond eliminating the need for a computer altogether (which is impractical), that means it should be accessible on the three big desktop platforms, probably the web as well.
Totally agree that for simple data like character delimited text tables it's not a problem, and Open Data should tend toward the simplest format practical to c
Re:Publicly Funded Governments (Score:5, Insightful)
With that said, I think governments should use open standards for data, document storage and interfaces where available, and avoid products (proprietary or otherwise) that do not support such standards.
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Agreed. They should avoid being locked into a certain vendor.
Also, there certainly is plenty of reasons to vote against OSS solutions - take the whole RH7 disaster with GNOME 3 - if you are running it in a virtual environment for users (say, like a terminal server), GNOME 3 (which is the default) is no go (doesn't play nice in virtual) so you're left with Microsoft.
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Wait, GNOME3 does not play nice in a virtual environment so you are left with Microsoft??? where did that come from?
Dont use Gnome3, I never use a gui on a server but if you are making a terminal server as you say then use any of the other WM's From KDE to FVWM, there are lots of WM choices and you are not just stuck with the default. Well with linux you are not stuck with the default, cant say the same for Windows.
See http://xwinman.org/ [xwinman.org]
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No, when you install RHEL you get a choice, you do not have to have the gui at all or you can choose the ones on the disk or you can install another from RPM.
Just an FYI, you do not have to have the gui installed to use the gui installs for an app. All you need is a small subset of the libraries, not the whole WM. The client (Person doing the install) can use a lot of different software on their end, I am only going to point out two possible solutions. They can use cygwin and ssh with an exported X display
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If you use a graphics installer for Redhat you are not really using a window manager like KDE, Gnome or even Xfce. Anyway have many users are using RHEL for the desktop? (although you could). As for installers for Documentum, Matlab, Oracle, etc they are specific to the software application and will run under most window managers. Actually you would normally install software like what you just mentioned via client software which could even be on a Microsoft Widows machine.
As for "trying to get people not to use the default GUI" that is the wrong thing to say since if you are the system admin it is very easy to set up particular users to only use a specific Window Manager using "kickstart" (very useful if you want a consistent configuration across all machines). Of course you could do a manual installation as well but that can get very tedious across hundreds of machines.
There are cases where that works, and a lot that it does not. For production environments, it's not hard to pull off. In my case, in a lab environment, it does not work. We are strongly pushing users to avoid default setups for CentOS/RHEL 7, use 6 when possible, etc, but for the lab, it boils down to the users being in control of the VMs.
(Ultimately, I'm still pissed at the GNOME team (and Red Hat) for having a desktop environment that composititing cannot be disabled, and soft renders the whole thing w
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In some cases the TCO will be lower,
That is true, but only when looking at TCO in the short term. In the longer term, proprietary software will always turn out more expensive. Either because licencing fees go up or the business eventually goes out of business and expensive projects will need to be started to replace the functionality of the now unsupported software. Using free open source software, means that the user always has access to the technology and is able to ensure the product continues to perform the function that it was intended t
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As long as the products really do support the standard and the standard doesn't allow blobs of proprietary data formats.
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The other thing governments should not do is mandate software or other purchases of specific things from specific companies.
The government currently would require me to buy health insurance if I didn't already have it. I looked at my options. There's something like seven insurance companies in direct competition, and if an eighth came up with a way to sell it cheaper they'd be welcome. No problem.
If I have to use IE, or Microsoft Office, to use government services or connect with the government, I'm
Re: Publicly Funded Governments (Score:2)
License fees here are evil because you as a taxpayer have to pay them and then to read a document from your government (which in many cases you are legally compelled to do: tax documents for example) you have to pay them again (since you aren't allowed to use the copy you and your fellow citizens collectively bought). At least when my taxes help pay for a road I get to drive on said road.
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That is a religious argument. personally I would prefer my government to stay out of religion. Software is a tool, governments concerns should be using the best tool for the job with the least cost. Hopefully that is free software, if not then that is fine too.
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Software is everywhere, and can do so much good, but it can also do a lot of evil. Without having the source code to know what the software is doing (especially after the NSA's activities were detailed by Snowden's leaks), you don't truly know what it's doing.
Like I said, how is that different to any other system? Do you have the schematics for the telephone and all the hardware used in the telephone networks? Or traffic light systems? Traffic cameras? etc... ? Pushing this at the software level is obviously silly, start at the bottom and get the hardware all open first.
Governments and the people should always be aware of what the software is doing, and no one should be beholden to a specific company.
Nobody is, you don't have to use any specific company.
They're not sets of instructions and don't have the same implications that software has, but I still think that being blindly ignorant of everything is bad.
And from that perspective open software is utterly pointless unless it is running on open hardware (and that the hardware it is running on ca
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But even if I agreed, all that implies is that you need a source license, not that you need an open source or a free software license.
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With proprietary software, you do not know what the software is doing, cannot modify it to your liking, and cannot hire someone else to modify it.
None of these are necessarily the case. For instance, Google has obtained a source license to Adobe's Flash player. They can read the source, they can edit it, they can hire people to edit it, and they can redistribute in binary form -- but they cannot redistribute the source code because it is not open source.
This is before we dive into the fine distinctions made between open source and free software.
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That is BS. publicly funded Government departments Priorities should be first and foremost to ensure they are getting best value for money, if that is OSS/Free software then great, license fees are a tiny part of the cost of most software and while they are an important consideration the overall cost and effectiveness is far more important. Also plenty of OSS sucks (just like plenty of Closed source software does), and NO open source doesn't prevent kickbacks as it still needs to be supported and inevitably
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You do realize that very few people share RMS's opinions, right? I flatly don't agree that proprietary software is unethical, and I have put a lot of thought into software ethics. People who aren't familiar with the philosophy are in general not going to think it's unethical, any more than a copyrighted book or song is unethical. (Yes, I know, some people think copyright itself is unethical, but again they're in a small minority.)
There is some really good F/OS software, but it's not always higher qual
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What are you, some kind of communist or an hippie?
Copyright (a government-enforced monopoly over ideas that infringes upon free speech and real private property rights) makes a nation more communist-like than a nation that's otherwise the same but without copyright. Let the free market decide whether or not someone succeeds and can make money from software. If they can't, then they sure as hell don't deserve the ability to stop people from copying certain data using their own equipment.
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Copyright turns what is "naturally" a communal asset, in that it is trivially duplicated, and turns it into a capital asset. Thus, it is *absolutely* more capitalist than it is communist.
I think you're confusing capitalist vs. communist, with liberty vs. authority.
(I don't find some degree of copyright bad in a capitalist context, nor do I find communism necessarily bad, but it's hard to even imagine how copyright could make sense in a communist context).
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That was in response to another misuse of the term "communism" to mean "anything that I don't like." I just turned that around on them.
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So release under and support creative commons / copyleft instead and avoid the content released under the ideology you despise.
I release under the public domain, which makes more sense.
It already can
Oh, really? So I can share copyrighted content with others with no legal repercussions? If not, then no, it can't. Right, my use of my own property, as well as free speech, is being restricted so that some people can have little government-enforced monopolies over data.
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No what I mean is you can prove whether or not the copyleft / public domain model works, but the products of it are *mostly* junk because there is no incentive for people with talent to invest in it.
That's because our system is explicitly designed to encourage copyright (essentially everything is copyrighted by default). What would it look like without it?
By the way, this isn't only about practical benefits, but about freedom. In fact, it's mostly about freedom. Controlling my property and my speech so you can have little monopolies is unacceptable.
Then dont use copyrighted stuff, your problem is you want the products of the copyright system because the copyleft / public domain system is not adequate and produces very little of any value, the things of value and the things you want are a product of the copyright system.
Good things can come out of otherwise bad systems. Even Nazi Germany had some good aspects to it. Furthermore, throwing things away just because of the syst
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Unacceptable maybe, but tolerable?
Not tolerable.
So we maintain both systems and leave the choice up to the content creator, for the end user they have ideological choice.
Once again, can I use my own property to share copyrighted content with others? If not, then it's an infringement upon my private property and free speech rights. This response of yours is nothing but a cop-out.
I dont need to, you are the one suggesting change, the onus to prove that they *would*
Utter fucking bullshit. Copyright is unproven. It is on those who propose laws or defend unproven laws that need to present their scientific evidence. You can't just shove a law through without providing any proof that it will be effective and then claim that anyone who says the law is
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Well you do tolerate it, what do you do to combat it?
Vote for people I feel would truly represent me, participate in protests, donate to various organizations who lobby for policies I agree with, write to my supposed 'representatives', and encourage others to do the same. That might not be much, but it's also not nothing.
Stay away from copyrighted content, but you can't, you are unable to. The problem is you know your system doesn't work and you *require* the products of the copyrighted system.
The reason I don't is because copyright is irrelevant to me. Don't tell me what I know, or I'll have to start doing the same to you. You know that you're 100% incorrect, and that's why you spew forth ad hominems left and right. Does that soun
Microsoft cannot compete in the marketplace... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Microsoft cannot compete in the marketplace... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd argue that using windows is easier for most people than it is using Linux....
Why is Microsoft afraid of allowing the marketplace to decide?
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Only because of the "devil you know" argument. It's similar to QWERTY: we can't convert until everybody else does first.
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It's a network effect. If you use a certain OS, it's more valuable the more other people who use it. It becomes a point of congregation for software, knowledge, and support.
The single biggest advantage Windows has is that it can run Windows-compatible software better than any other OS around. As long as people get Windows to run whatever software they want, software vendors will write Windows versions. As long as there's more Windows versions of important software than anything else, people are going
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I'd argue that using windows is easier for most people than it is using Linux.
After Windows 8, that's quite debatable.
Re:Microsoft cannot compete in the marketplace... (Score:5, Interesting)
> I'd argue that using windows is easier for most people than it is using Linux.
Why? When I want to launch a browser, I click the browser icon. What is so difficult? When I want to print, I can clink the printer icon. And so on. I would say it is *much* easier to go from Win7 to Gnome2, than from Win7 to Win8. People keep posting about Linux being difficult to use. Why? What is so difficult about it?
> Not to mention, they would need to retrain all their personal to use linux
You mean like having to retrain people to use Win8? Win8 is radically different than previous versions of Windows. How about retraining people to that "ribbon" crap in ms-office. Why is it: if somebody does not want to learn the new MS whatever, that person is lazy and stupid. But, nobody should suffer the burden of learning Linux?
> make their own variant for security purpose
What?
> and then actually Support that version of linux. In the end, that would cost too much.
What makes you think so? What makes you think supporting Linux would cost more than supporting Windows?
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> Do you honestly think, if Linux was superior to Windows in all the right ways, it would have achieved something better than single digits in terms of desktop usage?
Mostly it's about apps. Windows hugely wins on apps. Since windows has the huge majority of market share, everybody writes apps for windows. Nobody runs a PC just to run the OS.
> The issue of use goes further ahead than just clicking an icon. What if you try to go to a web site with a particular Flash widget you want to use, but it fails
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running the stuff people want .... Windows does so, Linux doesn't.
Depends on the people, depends on what they want.
You could invert that sentence and swap "Mac" for "Linux" for many audiences ; particularly creative types that have specialist apps that only run on one platform.
For simple uses... there's no problem. Linux has browsers, email clients, and LibreOffice. For business purposes, anything written in Java or one of the other virtual runtimes should be easy to port to Linux, or run right out of the box.
For complex uses... it depends on the niche. Certainly for soft
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I agree that you should use whatever OS runs the apps you need. Here's some anecdotal evidence to throw into the discussion:
I work in a software shop with probably 100-200 developers. Our software run
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Are you sure? Whenever there's an article on the situation in Ukraine recently, it is flooded by people with Russian-looking names who spout what really looks like Russian propaganda. It surprised me. I really didn't think Putin cared about us.
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It's really that most people have more experience of Windows.
I'd argue it's not actually any easier. Both have their quirks and complexities. I have a lot of experience with both ; I find Linux far easier than Windows.
My Mother had limited experience with both ; she finds Linux just as difficult as Windows, but I find it easier to support her on Linux. All things being equal she uses the same apps (Firefox, Thunderbird, LibreOffice), I'd rather she was on a platform I can support easily and is somewhat robu
Details? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to be a party-pooper but there isn't anything at all in the article about what "the Microsoft lobby" actually did or not. Only that a politician that were against the free software support law from the start managed to get a contrary law passed a while later.
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I'm with you on this. TFA should be labeled, "opinion."
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...not even that. From TFS, you can deduce that the second piece of legislation isn't even contrary, but is just equally beneficial to ALL software instead of being tailored to encourage adoption of free software.
So the summary could be rewritten as: "Free Software Lobby fails to prevent the use of Closed Software in Government and Business."
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This is Slashdot. If it's software related and negative, everyone blames Microsoft whether they are involved or not. It seems to me like the government wanted free stuff so it stands to reason that the people who create stuff for their livelihood would not like that. I mean... that's the whole point in people not liking piracy. Just cause you put it into law doesn't mean it's morally right... kind of like legal tax evasion for churches.
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Only that a politician that were against the free software support law from the start managed to get a contrary law passed a while later.
And that politician apparently had a name change between these two events, so I guess he might have gone through some life altering event which could explain it?
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It's amazing what an all-expenses-paid vacation to the Bahamas can do for one's point of view...
It seems like... (Score:4, Interesting)
The legislators were mainly interested in getting a price break from Microsoft, and they found a way to do it.
Well, wait,,,, (Score:5, Insightful)
By my understanding, tax breaks being offered on something only mean that you effectively only get some percentage of the money back that you spent on that thing.
But if you aren't spending any of your money on that thing in the first place, even if it would give you a tax break, aren't you still further ahead than if you did spend the money when you can only get part of it back?
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Correct.
It will lower the threshold to continue or start using proprietary software though. It's about the market share first, the money follows later once you've cornered the market.
Can you trust the Free Software cult on this? (Score:1, Interesting)
I pretty much don't. "Certain tax breaks" is a choice of words that could mean any tax deduction of expenses. "Would allow the state" can well be a euphemism for "forces the state". Sadly, I don't trust the FSF crowd to use words reasonably.
I have an idea (Score:2)
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Actually, that per-seat license does make it your damn VAULT.
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Writing Comprehension (Score:1)
So Vlado Mirosevic changed his name into Daniel Farcas just so he could push the response bill? That's really clever! (Missed it? It says in TFA and TFS that the _same_ MP, but with a different name, pushed this).
Also, I smell hoax, FUD, what have you. One name sounds Serbian, the other Romanian. In Chile. We guys barely made it out of the area, much less into overseas ruling positions.
What "Munich Linux debacle"?? (Score:4, Interesting)
Munich isn't ditching Linux.
Not often that SN gets the drop on /., they must be improving.
http://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=14/08/21/0836239
Re:What "Munich Linux debacle"?? (Score:5, Interesting)
There's a vice-mayor that heard stories of some city workers having trouble with the compatibility of certain file formats and he wants an investigation into it.
This says nothing about the Linux OS or something else OSS being ditched, it doesn't even mean he's getting his investigation!
Wow (Score:3)
Old ways (Score:2, Insightful)
Nobody bribes the old way.
Your spouse get consulting job, your son gets contract to discover effects of Moon's light on frogs population.
That's how is done, just look at the transfer of government money into lucrative contracts for private companies.
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The real problem is... (Score:1)
America brands itself as Valhalla for capitalism. An environment where a good business can triumph, rewarding the owners and punishing the weak and lazy.
Problem is that the whole thing is a lie.
America has dirty hands. Litigation or sub-rosa dealings are the norm at the expense of true enterprise. Lobbyists encourage lawmakers to enact rules which prohibit or hamper competition. Businesses engage in 'glass parking lot' lawsuits to bleed competitors and consumers dry.
The hopeful entrepreneur would be wise to
Chile is America? South America I guess (Score:2)
> America brands itself ...
Chile is America now? This article is about politics is Chile.
Huffpost loses misleading tagline championship! (Score:3)
This just out: Slashdot publishes an article with the title "Microsoft Lobby Denies the State of Chile Access to Free Software".
Anyone reading the article sees that no such thing has happened.
Huffpost slides into second place for misleading tagline, but still retains "sideboob" title.
Excuse me (Score:4, Insightful)
"Munich and Linux debacle"? Looks like you misspelt "success story" there, and nevermind the political backstabbing.
fuck you microsoft (Score:2)
Bilingual speaker here! * (Score:5, Informative)
My two cents here:
I read the linked English article, as well as the article in Spanish that they reference ("Ubuntizando.com"), as well as the original article in Spanish. **
The original article (in Ubuntizando) says NOTHING about the name of the legislator that did the counter-proposal, or anything about any alleged tax breaks. Is mostly derivative and incomplete. From this point onwards, I will reference only the article in "biobiochile"
The second article cites two others which I did not read (I have a limited amount of time). BioBioChile interviews only the "Pro-Free-Software***" (Mirosevic) legislator, and not the other (Farcas) who, as the summary clearly states, was the one who voted against Free Software****. Is only logical that the guy launched a counter-proposal. The only surprising thing is the turn-around time (24h).
Even more, the article (in biobiochile), indicates, in the words of Mirosevic himself***** "Half the people [referring to the other legislators, "diputados", or congressmen for those in the US] had no idea what we were talking about. I do not mean of the concept of Free software, but of software itself, but as we calculated, the rest followed those of us who understood". Is only logical, that they voted on the second initiative again whitout a clear understanding, either folowing party guidelines, or swayed by the 10 legislators that submitted the second motion.
From the way of writing (the subtle nuances are often lost in machine translation), starting with the title of the article itself ("Microsoft Raped Us"), I feel the magazine is "Amarillista" (think tabloid/sensationalist). And Slashdot is just being Slashdot, with the added hurdle of the language barrier.
While I am no big fan (nor am I an enemy) of Microsoft, I am less a fan of tabloids and crappy reporting, hence this comment
* For the record, 296/300 in my ToEFL way back when.
** Is in biobiochile.com, never heard of any of them, here is the link, for what is worth:
http://www.biobiochile.cl/2014/08/19/diputado-mirosevic-revela-sabotaje-a-proyecto-que-fomentaba-software-libre-microsoft-nos-violo.shtml
*** Again to recap, the pro-free-software resolution was voted by 64 yes, 1 no and 12 abstentions.
**** Free as in beer, "Libre in Spanish"
***** “La mitad de la gente no tenía idea de qué estábamos hablando. No digo del concepto software libre, más bien de los softwares, pero como habíamos calculado, el resto siguió a los que sí habían entendido”, relató Mirosevic a la publicación.
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**** Free as in beer, "Libre in Spanish"
FWIW Free as in beer = gratis in Spanish, not libre
Re:Easy to lobby when funded by the taxpayer (Score:4, Insightful)
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Actually I think he was referring to money he spent on stuff that either contained a Microsoft Product or payed patent royalties to MS. I could be wrong though.
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Free software can be problematic also.
For one, serious use isn't free...enterprise use requires growing or renting expertise. Many of the major stuff, such as Mozilla, are supported by groups that actually do at least in part require funding.
They dont need expertise in windows? Both require someone to make it work.
For another, all open licenses are not the same - can matter depending on what one intends to do
True, but no one reads the Microsoft Licensing agreement. If legal ever did read it they would not allow the software to be installed. I know because I did a search and replace on the word Microsoft in their licensing agreement and then submitted it to legal. Legal put a stop to the install because we could not agree to the licensing terms of the software. They were surprised when I let them know it was Microsoft and eventually allowe
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I consider doing this even here in the UK sometimes.
My office shelled out, I estimate, around €30,000 for WinRAR licenses. Looking at the report justifying it's purchase, it's clear that 7-zip beats it out in basically every category of functionality that they assessed it on... but no-one sells 7-zip so you have no-one to point the finger at if it fails.
A small company selling support for F/OSS packages could really clean up (and probably not have to do very much real work), just by tendering prices a