[GUFSC] governos deveriam usar software livre

[Ricardo Grutzmacher]

Não sei que candidatos irão se preocupar com a questão do software livre 
vs. software proprietário, entretanto este artigo anunciado no 
OpenOffice.Org parece interessante sobre o Governo e o Software Livre:

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-955282.html

Study: Governments need open source
By Matthew Broersma
ZDNet (UK)
August 26, 2002, 5:46 AM PT


TalkBack!


A new study has recommended that governments require the use of 
open-source software, fanning the flames of the increasingly heated 
debate over the place of open-source in public policy.

The Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) study, from the University 
of Maastricht's International Institute of Infonomics, argues that 
open-source software can bring substantial benefits to governments, 
including reduced costs, and that governments should require that the 
software they buy uses an open-source license.

"By determining the conditions under which software can be used in 
public sector organizations, no natural or legal person should then be 
prohibited from offering goods and services to them," the report said. 
"This should not be misunderstood as a positive discrimination for a 
specific type of software, e.g. free of charge software."

Aside from the inherent advantages to the public sector of open-source 
licenses, such a requirement would also effectively increase competition 
in public-sector buying, the report argued: "By determining these 
requirements governments would in practice open the market for public 
services, by avoiding (a) lock-in situation." Proprietary software 
companies seek to improve their competitive position by locking users 
into their products -- that is, making them dependent on a particular 
data or file format.

Open-source software makers cannot lock users in because the nature of 
an open-source license gives competitors access to the way applications 
and file formats are constructed. Broadly speaking, open-source licenses 
allow developers to modify and redistribute the original programming 
code of a piece of software, so long as the modifications are returned 
to the community.

The FLOSS report argues that open-source software, by its nature, better 
fulfils certain governmental responsibilities than software to which 
source-code access is restricted. These responsibilities include the 
public's right to public information and to know how that information is 
processed; the permanence of public data; and the security of that data.

As a result, it recommends that governments require software licenses 
that essentially follow open-source guidelines: unlimited access to 
source code, the right to reproduce an unlimited number of copies of the 
software, and the right to modify and redistribute the software, for 
example. If such software isn't available for the desired purpose, 
governments could accept limitations that would allow it to use 
proprietary software only as a last resort.

However, the political will involved in creating such requirements means 
that open-source software is more likely to continue making its way into 
the public sector in a piecemeal fashion, the report said. Governments 
in Europe, led by France and Germany, have begun shifting serious 
support to open source, the report noted, with France's ministries of 
Defense, Culture and Economy shifting to open-source operating systems. 
Germany's Federal Institute for Agriculture and Food, Administration of 
the German Parliament, Lower Saxony Police and other bodies have 
implemented open-source operating systems on servers, workstations or 
both. In Britain, open-source activity has mainly been concentrated in 
the NHS, the report said.

Government use of open source is an increasingly controversial issue. 
Activists recently announced a bill that would require the government of 
California to use open source, and governments in Europe and elsewhere 
have shown stronger interest in the software.

On the other hand, the likes of Microsoft and the Initiative for 
Software Choice have begun to step up their anti-open-source lobbying 
and propaganda efforts, claiming that licensing requirements are 
discriminatory against proprietary software vendors.