Solon weighs policies on gov't use of open source software

By Erwin Lemuel Oliva, INQ7.net

WILL Congress enact a law that will require Philippine government agencies to opt for open source software rather than proprietary software?

"I would be willing to consider a policy on open source [use in government]," Representative Simeon Kintanar told reporters last week in an interview, following a brief talk on open source software at a local Linux conference at the Dusit Nikko Hotel in Manila.

Kintanar said a stronger policy on open source software use in government will encourage more competition, which would likely lead to pressure vendors to lower the cost of proprietary software, as in the case in Thailand.

The lawmaker acknowledged that government is one of the biggest customers of software in the Philippines.

"We need to make e-governance happen so [government] needs to buy software," Kintanar added, stressing that the policy would also require proprietary software to be interoperable with open source software.

"So with such a policy, nobody is in control," the lawmaker said, noting that he is currently gathering more inputs from various sectors.

Kintanar is chairman of the House committee on information and communications technology.

During the Philippine Summit on Information Society at Manila Hotel last week, open source software advocate Robert Verzola suggested to the Commission on Information and Communications Technology that it come out with a policy that would make open source software the "default" software loaded onto computers purchased by government.

"This will save Philippine government millions," he added, noting that such a policy would not totally bar proprietary software from use by government agencies.

"On a case to case basis, government offices will need to justify their preference for commercial software," he said.

Reacting to Verzola's proposal, CICT Commissioner Emmanuel Lallana said that Philippine government should first develop its capability with open source software "before we mandate it."

Lallana said a government project known as "PC ng Bayan" is currently offering the Bayanihan Linux operating system, an open source package developed by the Advance Science and Technology Institute, to government agencies.

"I personally believe that it's not a viable alternative for us right now [to mandate open source software use in government]. For now, we will allow each agency to decide on this," he added.

In a separate interview, Microsoft officials told INQ7.net that it has a "government security program" that allows governments access to the source code of its software.

"We share code in different levels. It is indeed important to have a number of options, although we still don't share 100 percent of our source code," said Martin Gregory, Microsoft Australia platform value manager.

"We don't compete with open source. We compete with other commercial software," the Microsoft executive stressed.

 

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