Argentina Mulls Open-Source Move<http://argentinadiscovery.nireblog.com/post/2008/04/13/argentina-mulls-open-source-move> http://argentinadiscovery.nireblog.com/post/2008/04/13/argentina-mulls-open-source-move
Argentina may become the first country in the world to require all government offices to use open-source software, pending the outcome of a bill recently introduced in the nation's congress. The measure is sponsored by representative Marcelo Dragán as part of a national campaign against rampant software piracy in the South American country. More than 60 percent of the computer programs in Argentina are illegal, costing the software industry about $200 million a year, according to the vendor trade association Software Legal. Until the country's intellectual property law was modified in November 1998, it was perfectly legal to copy software in Argentina. Today, anyone caught with pirated goods faces fines and up to six years in the slammer. After a 45-day "truce" in the wake of the law's passage, the association targeted 15,000 firms it believed use crooked copies, based on an analysis of public data, such as tax and social security documents. Of the original targets, about 6,000 have rectified their situation, said association president Martín Carranza Torres. Ironically, the government itself is one of the worst copyright violators. The association has pending lawsuits against several bureaucratic agencies, including the Secretariat of Tourism, the Federal Radio Committee and the Social Security Administration. "It's a cultural issue, not a money issue," Carranza Torres insisted. "People just don't understand the value of software." Not surprisingly, Carranza Torres is unhappy about the proposed bill. "We are against any law that impedes free competition," he said. "There should be a transparent bidding process, where every program is analyzed objectively." But switching to open-source software would mean big savings for the government, which is already crippled by a $145 billion debt, said Mario Albornoz, the director of the Institute of Social Studies of Science and Technology. The measure would create jobs for local programmers and software development companies, but might also cause a lot of headaches for functionaries ill-prepared to install and maintain open systems, he added. "The advantages and risks must be weighed openly in a dialogue that the government has yet to initiate," Albornoz said. -- Att. Guilherme H. S. Ostrock
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