Democracy and Information Technology
I've been extremely busy this week, but this particular subject is more than important enough to get something written and posted.
Dr. Edgar David Villanueva Nuñez, a Congressman of the Republica of Perú has written a terrific rebuttal to a letter from Juan Alberto González, General Manager of Microsoft, Perú (I can't find the original in English, so we must rely upon Dr. Nuñez letter for content) regarding a bill (Bill Number 1609, Free Software in Public Administration) that seems to require the Peruvian government to adopt open source software for all publicly funded operations.
I found the entire discussion very compelling, but the last section just continues to resonate:
We agree that in the private sector of the economy, it must be the market that decides which products to use, and no state interference is permissible there. However, in the case of the public sector, the reasoning is not the same: as we have already established, the state archives, handles, and transmits information which does not belong to it, but which is entrusted to it by citizens, who have no alternative under the rule of law. As a counterpart to this legal requirement, the State must take extreme measures to safeguard the integrity, confidentiality, and accessibility of this information. The use of proprietary software raises serious doubts as to whehter these requirements can be fulfilled, lacks conclusive evidence in this respect, and so is not suitable for use in the public sector.
The need for a law is based, firstly, on the realization of the fundamental principles listed above in the specific area of software; secondly, on the fact that the State is not an ideal homogoneous entity, but made up of multiple bodies with varying degrees of autonomy in decision making. Given that it is inappropriate to use proprietary software, the fact of establishing these rules in law will prevent the personal discretion of any state employee from putting at risk the information which belongs to citizens. And above all, because it constitutes an up-to-date reaffirmation in relation to the means of management and communication of information used today, it is based on the republican principle of openness to the public.
In conformance with this universally accepted principle, the 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.
While we in the United States seem to be driving backwards; privatizing government functions in the name of cost reduction (sad little laugh there) and eliminating the rights of individuals (in the name of public safety, ease of implementation or terrorist control) I find it very refreshing to see the ideals we started out with being adopted by a country that most Americans see as a wannabe democracy. Bravo for them!
The paper by Dr. Nuñez describes in depth the software infrastructure responsibilities of a national government in a democratic society, and should leave every American wondering why we're not concerned with the same things.
In my opinion, the reasons are simple. No government (even ours), wants a lot of oversight by anyone; certainly not the public (typically personified by the press) and most assuredly not the political opposition. The current executive branch is more concerned with privacy (theirs, not ours) than any since the end of Vietnam conflict. While busily beating off the invasion of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) access to the papers of prior administrations (and anything else they can prohibit) which might reflect badly on current members of the administration, they're also busy trying to find ways to keep even more of what they do secret.
The lobby groups for Microsoft (and countless others) had already made the concept of open source seem to be wholly un-american to congress (we only wish they were our representatives).
At the same time, Microsoft already owned a significant portion of the technology infrastructure of this county (and many others) and was more than ready to make a deal with the devil if it left them free from public oversight.
Had the original ruling by Jackson stood, we might be in a situation where the US Government could stipulate that all government agencies use open source technologies, but that's history. For now, we seem to have entered a time where all government agencies must use Microsoft software because of a backroom deal where certain MS technologies (appear) to have traps that government agencies can use to their advantage.
So, how does it feel to live in a second rate democracy? On the other hand, good tidings fair citizen, this is a first rate Corpocracy, aren't you happy?
11:11:56 PM 
|
|
