Saturday, August 09, 2003
The teaser
A response to Robin 'Roblimo' Miller's recent post on NewsForge on the issue 'whether governments should make usage of Open Source software mandatory'. And a look at the issue from the point of view of governments in developing countries.
The preamble
In a newsforge article available here, Robin Miller writes on whether governments should make usage of Open Source mandatory for specific usage in government agencies. The very idea that governments will want to meddle in the software choice is an anathema to the Initiative for Software Choice (ISC) and industry lobby formed with the aim of promoting the cause of 'choice'. The article, though written with the developed nations in mind, has some consonance and relevance in developing countries across Asia.
The reason
The government of any developing nation executes and implements the strategy followed by entrepenuers. The government takes scarces resources and optimises business plans to produce quality of deliverables. Thus it really is not very far off the mark that it would attempt to do the same in its procurement standards. Over the years, investment in proprietary and mostly closed source products have led to constant efforts towards upgradation. As the article rightly points out, for mission critical applications and domains, the government is within its rights to specify a different set of criteria to be met by vendors. Those willing to meet such specifications, subject themselves to standard operating procedures of quality checks and assurances that certify them as 'government suppliers'. This is a common place enough occurence. And since it occurs across all levels of procurement and purchase, there is no reason at all why software purchase should get preferential treatment.
The effect
It is improbable to assume and equally impossible to visualise that overnight shift into Open Source domain will actually occur. Yet, in the background of the stunning speech by His Excellency The President of India Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, it is evident that pushes and nudges in the direction are in the way.
This is the government side of the story. But then what about the commercial software vendors ? Government mandated Open Source advocacy and implementation puts them in a scenario that is not out of place in the current economic scenario. Mission critical applications and software are customised to adhere to specific standards, so perhaps the commercial (proprietary) vendors will release 'Open Source' (Shared Source ?) versions of the off-the-shelf products. The quid pro quo being that such releases will be restricted to government agencies and departments - a sort of restricted license.
Bleeding heart liberals and those crying out for software choice would probably sulk at such enforced choice. Yet, in the end it really boils down to economical optimisation of scarce resources to get the best possible end-result. In normal SOHO based government transactions, e-governance implementations, G2C portals, education drives, EDI initiatives it makes sense to invest in a stable, secure solution suite. Arguably, investing and insisting on Open Standards makes for better sense at first sight. However, Open Standards and Open Source are not the same thing. Leveraging open standards can possibly lead to closed source products (which is often the case). Insisting on availability of source code makes it imperative that the principles of 'fair trade' are followed. This leads to avoidance of vendor lock-in and brings into play the full effect of the 'many eye-balls theory'.
In conclusion
It took many a skirmish before manufacturers of Indian PCs could ensure that government tenders published specifications as opposed to vendor names. Yet even now, a few infringements come to light. Implementation of Open Source products as a policy has a long way to go. In a recent seminar on GNU/Linux and e-governance (a report on the same is available at the iLUG-Kolkata website), the Minister for IT Sri Manabendra Mukherjee stated the stand of the state government. Succintly put, he said that the government was not averse to looking and critically appraising GNU/Linux and other Open Source solutions, although a few domains would see implementations of products from the Redmond giant. All over the country, the attitude remains the same. Barring the efforts and initiatives of a few concerned individuals, government involvement in FLOSS is at best ambivalent and at worst non-existent.
Democracy is based on the choice made by the people. Choice is sincere and apt only when relevant and accurate information is at hand. Perhaps a notification making it mandatory to appraise and evaluate equivalent Open Source software and implement it if found to be optimal will be a step in the right direction.
Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay is a Free Software enthusiast and a member of India Linux Users Group - Kolkata. His blog 'Random Thoughts' reflects his writings on various technological and human issues.
- posted by sankarshan @ 8/09/2003 05:17:00 AM
