The Hindu Business Line : Stuck for options

It's back to square one — open source or `free' software versus proprietary software. And eWorld featured the theme with reference to the Indian context a few weeks ago. But this time, the defence lawyer for free software makes a crack-proof case which appears applicable to Governments and companies all over the world. So, read on, and figure out if you're the prosecution or the cheering public.

A citizen has the right to know all information held by the State and not covered by well-founded declarations of secrecy based on law. Now, software deals with information and is itself information. Information in a special form, capable of being interpreted by a machine in order to execute actions, but crucial information all the same because the citizen has a legitimate right to know, for example, how his vote is computed or his taxes calculated. And for that he must have free access to the source code and be able to prove to his satisfaction the programs used for electoral computations or calculation of his taxes.

— Dr Edgar David Villanueva Nuñez, Congressman of the Republic of Perú.

IF you are responsible for investments in technology in your company, you have probably thought about this scenario: you pay a certain amount for a certain software and service now. What if two years down, that software vendor hikes the price 10 times, knowing that you can ill-afford to switch to another software, merely because of the common knowledge that software migration is a greater evil than having to shell out a few bucks more? You might have not found the answer to it, and would merely hope that the situation is improbable. But, the Peruvian Government has thought about it and has even passed a Bill to save itself from such a possibility.

Sure it sounds odd. We quote someone you might not know or of whom you wouldn't have heard. And then we go on to write a whole story based simply on his arguments for the use of open source software. His opinions are so well articulated that we thought that State governments in India can take away a few lessons from this.

About two months ago, the part of the software community that religiously pitches proprietary software against free software was hit by an amazing letter, reportedly by a Peruvian Congressman. The letter was in response to a letter by Microsoft Peru, following the tabling of a Bill mandating the use of free software in public institutions in Peru. The text of Dr Nunez' letter can be accessed at http://www.gnu.org.pe/resmseng.html.

Most surprising - and that's what settled things the free software way - was the grasp of concepts and philosophies that the Congressman displayed in his letter, and the clarity with which he argues for free software. Most free software advocates are seen as zealots who refuse to listen to the other side. Most defenders of proprietary software also refuse to listen to free software proponents. However, the arguments put forward by Dr Edgar David Villanueva Nunez, Congressman of Peru, makes for compulsive reading and makes people of both sides rethink their positions and the way they need to put forth their points.

Looking back at the document - the Congressman's reply - one wonders whether the arguments that he makes are valid only for governments. Why aren't companies thinking about the same things? What is India's stance on information and the technology used? How about local government?

Dr Nunez lists three principles that inspired the Bill on free software: One, free access to public information by the citizen;two, permanence of public data; and three, security of the State and citizens.

Dr Nunez explains the principles and the Bill: "To guarantee the free access of citizens to public information, it is indispensable that the encoding of data is not tied to a single provider. The use of standard and open formats gives a guarantee of this free access, if necessary, through the creation of compatible free software.

To guarantee the permanence of public data, it is necessary that the usability and maintenance of the software does not depend on the goodwill of the suppliers, or on the monopoly conditions imposed by them. For this reason the State needs systems the development of which can be guaranteed due to the availability of the source code.

To guarantee national security or the security of the State, it is indispensable to be able to rely on systems without elements that allow control from a distance or the undesired transmission of information to third parties. Systems with source code freely accessible to the public are required to allow their inspection by the State itself, by the citizens, and by a large number of independent experts throughout the world. Our proposal brings further security, since the knowledge of the source code will eliminate the growing number of programs with spy code."

Now, think about the three basic principles and companies.

As far as the first principle goes, companies have to make available relevant data to all stakeholders without causing them inconvenience. For instance, there is no point in forcing a customer or a vendor to use a particular software for them to be able to communicate and share information with your company. There is no point in making them upgrade just because you upgraded your systems. And conversely, there is no point in your stopping them from upgrading because you couldn't afford to upgrade to the latest release.

The second principle is as important to a company as it is to a State. Given the clichéd references like "it is cheaper to keep a customer than to acquire a new one" and "relationships" and "loyalty" and "data mining", the data that your company has is an extremely important resource. It provides an invaluable history of transactions, which provide the single most important insight into management decision-making - perspective. Can you afford to lose data that has been entrusted to you by customers, vendors and distribution partners? Can you afford to lose any data at all? Can you afford to lose the all-important ingredient of decision-making just because you couldn't afford to continue with one particular software vendor?

The third principle, of security, is the reason why anti-virus and security companies exist at all. Obviously, companies need to take this seriously. You certainly can't afford to have it known that you lost trusted data because of buggy software or a security vulnerability or even worse, because you were careless.

Dr Nunez also dwells upon the issue of employment that could well be a concern for the Central and State governments in India, should they consider open source software at all. One argument against the use of open source software in Peru was that employment opportunities could be affected if local and international software firms were discouraged from developing software. Dr Nunez' opinion is that with open source software comes immense customisation requirements and that itself should drive the growth for employment opportunities.

After all, with proprietary software, local developers actually have very little opportunity for significant value-add, except for support by technicians. As Dr Nunez puts it succinctly, "In countries such as ours, technicians who provide support for proprietary software produced by transnational companies do not have the possibility of fixing bugs, not necessarily for lack of technical capability or of talent, but because they do not have access to the source code to fix it."

He argues that with the use of open source software comes greater opportunities of employment for people of a higher calibre. In other words, both the quality of service and the total value of the service rise significantly with the shared fund of knowledge.

Interestingly, his arguments for open source software on the issue of free markets indicate that open source software is as free-market as you can get. One objection to the Bill in Peru, mandating the use of open source software, was that it discriminated against a certain section of the vendor community, proprietary software vendors, for instance. Dr Nunez points out that the Bill does not prevent vendors from selling proprietary software to the private sector. Crucially, as a software buyer, a government has the right to lay down conditions that it thinks are necessary to protect data belonging to the citizen and taxpayer. If a vendor chose not to provide software on those terms, that is a decision that the vendor makes and for which the government is not responsible.

And returning to free markets, mandating the use of open source software will help remove the influence of marketing by transnational corporations and will allow the merit of technical superiority take over, he says. According to him, "... a significant expense under this (marketing) heading can influence the decisions of the purchaser.

This influence of marketing is in large measure reduced by the Bill that we are backing, since the choice within the framework proposed is based on the technical merits of the product and not on the effort put into commercialisation (sic) by the producer; in this sense, competitiveness is increased, since the smallest software producer can compete on equal terms with the most powerful corporations."

Both these issues of employment and the push for the free market are critical to the Indian condition. One reason, industry watchers feel, that India has felt the effect of a US slowdown so acutely is because we haven't concentrated too much on the domestic market. While revenues from the domestic may not make us starry-eyed, they are nothing to sneeze at.

If a small buyer is unwilling to spend several thousand dollars annually on software to which he is tied down, he may just consider spending a few thousand rupees if software makes his organisation more efficient.

Ten software developers employed for development of such customised software, being paid in Indian rupees, is better than no software developers at all.

And obviously, a handful of small software companies earning their keep with such software development is better than none at all, again.

Finally, it is impossible to ignore at least one message that Dr Nunez's missive conveys to the reader: that open source software does not necessarily mean free software.

It means that even if migration from proprietary software is expensive and difficult, it needs to be done just this once.

And, it certainly is cheaper to do it now than discover the difficulty and cost at a later date, to merely migrate to another piece of proprietary software - which defeats the purpose.

eworld@thehindu.co.in

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