ביום חמישי 11 דצמבר 2003, 08:19, כתבת: > Regarding your article: Open questionDear Open Source Friends,
> Here is my reply: > I had come across Prof. MacCormack's paper and I also found it very > interesting. I agree with him that the state of the art of TCO measurement > is not where we would like it to be and that fact adds a lot of uncertainty > into the equation. Nonetheless, for public policy purposes, one has to > take a position. Given the existing evidence, and given the institutional > history of the Israeli government (pays bloated salaries) as well as the > unfortunate economic situation in Israel (huge national budget deficit), I > believe, as I stated in the conclusion of the article, that it would be > pre-mature to switch to open source solutions in the Israeli public sector. > There is a greater probability that expenses will increase rather than > decrease following such a move. The Israeli government should therefore > postpone a switch until more comprehensive studies are conducted and more > evidence is collected. The Israeli government has been risking taxpayer > money for far too long in almost every sphere of its activities. Note that > I am not saying that the switch should never take place. I'm only saying > that now is not the right time in Israel. While I fully understand the p[roblem, I do not think that your article presented any hard data relevant to the situation. in fact - there is simply no empherycal evidence that switching to open source would increase computerization costs in the government sector or elleviate costs. Evidence from other sectors does indicate that switching to open source and specifically free software (please don't confuse the two terms) does reduce total costs - in the private and military sector. In addition to the important distinction between open source software and free software, its also important to understand that open source does not mean 'non-commercial'. for example of a fully commercial but open source software, you might take the StarOffice software suite by Sun. Another prime example is the OpenOffice software suite (on which the Sun StarOffice offering is based) being install by IBM in National Security offices across Israel. while being essentially both open source and free software, Open Office is backed by IBM support and integration services as an end-user product for Israeli National Security services. in that essence it is not much different the Microsoft's commercial MS-Office offering, except of course having all the known advantages of being an open source community developed project. It might be more correct to conclude that unless backed by high-end integration and support services at the level offered by the commercial competitors, switching to open source software is risky in very large government projects. Ss this kind of support is offered by many major software house and software providers, both international and Israeli based, the conclusion that open source software is inherintly risky seems premature. > I understand your concern for shared source. Perhaps its not ideal. But, > on the other hand, intellectual property rights must be clearly defined and > protected. If they aren't, I bet software innovation will also come to a > screeching halt. There's a similar problem in the pharmaceutical industry > with parallel importation and lax enforcement of the TRIPS agreement. Please read the US Federal Trade Commity research regarding patents (as an IP rights protection mechanism) and innovation in hi-tech industries, specificly comparing computer software and hardware to pharmaceutical and bio-technology sectors. The conclusions the draw are very interesting, particularly regarding your last comment. http://www.ftc.gov/os/2003/10/innovationrpt.pdf Of course we have completly failed to discuss the effects that using commercial (and expensive) software products has on the Israeli public itself - as the internet and other electronic and computerized communications are being used more and more to allow Israeli citizens to communicate directly with government offices, its important to keep the communication protocols used open and free so that free software can be used to access those channels, preventing the Israeli citizens from being required to purchase an expensive software suite to receive government services. The fact is that propriatery commercial software products, and specifically Microsoft's software products make it all to easy to create closed "Microsoft Only" access to public services, while using same software to enable open and free access becomes much more difficult (consider the platora of "Internet Explorer and MS-Word required" governmental web sites for a good example). This financial effects of this scenario are easy to surmise. -- Oded ::.. "But what we need to know is, do people want nasally-insertable computers?" ================================================================To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
