Re: [rms@gnu.org: Nonprofits and free software]

At 18:08 23.01.2003 +0000, Robert J. Chassell wrote:
-------------------------
> Imagine an aboriginal very free society, where people feel free,
> and then you come and tell them that they have to fight for their
> freedom.
>
>The Vietnamese I knew some years ago understood very well that they
>were fighting for their freedom from the French colonialists. Freedom
>was not an unknown idea. And it was clear that the country was not
>free.

I am talking about the "freedom to copy, use and re-distribute every SW".
Tell a youngster, that he should fight for the freedom to whistle whatever
melody he likes, because the author of this melody might sue him in five
years time. He will just laugh at you....

Maybe I should mention, that Vietnam is repeatedly champion in the yearly
worldwide hit list of "Pirated Software". If everybody here, who just
copies and uses some MS SW without paying Billy the equivalent of 5 to 10
years of his salary, would look like Billy suggests (i.e. run around with
one eye covered - pirate-like, etc.), then Hanoi would surely be a famous
tourist attraction and should change its flag to the skull with cross bones
<g>.
I think the latest estimations are at about 97% unlicensed SW. The
remaining 3% are probably Freewares, and the few foreign companies,
organizations, etc. who have to follow their HQ's rules. If you take only
Vietnamese, and take e.g. only MS Office, then I take every bet, that more
than 99.5% of all installed packages are installed without Billy's permission.
Yes, we do have a copyright law. It was most probably written using
"unlicensed" SW. The journalists occasionally write about it, using
"unlicensed" SW, the police who writes a report about the CD-ROM shop which
they occasionally raid (in order to show Billy some compliance) do it with
SW which they possibly "bought" from that very shop a week ago.
What I hear, in Hongkong the police was some years ago up to a point
successful to close down the CD-ROM shops. With the wide spread of cheap
CD-ROM writers, this would not make much difference here.

I have the slight impression, that MS gave it up to press for wide
adherence to their copy rights here in Vietnam, because they know, that
they are fighting here a lost battle. What they try instead, is to go only
for that easiest to catch prey: The foreign entities which they can squeeze
via their foreign headquarters. And possibly the Government and its
offices, which they can squeeze via political pressure.

Supposed they got serious about private businesses and the laws in this
regard would be really enforced (a very theoretical case here), then the
first thing would be, that companies would reduce the number of PCs to the
absolute minimum (which is against the Government's interest, since it
would reduce Vietnam's global competitiveness - and therefore a good reason
for the Government to follow such enforcement requests only very
reluctantly and/or symbolically), then buy only Windows for those few PCs
(and stick to old versions to avoid upgrade costs), and then use OpenOffice
or the like. MS Office with its inappropriate price is really out of the
question here. Now, once users are used to an alternative to the MS stuff,
and Free OS's (GNU/Linux and the like) get more mature on the desktop, then
it could well happen, that masses switch even the OS.

Now imagine Vietnam would switch in major part to Free Software..... Some
decades ago, Vietnam inspired already many other nations to free themselves
and get rid of their colonialists.... I don't think that some companies
like MS would like this to happen...

Note, that I am talking here "macro". For an ordinary user or programmer
there is not much awareness about the "freedom to copy, use and
re-distribute every SW". It is just the normal thing to do. As normal as
cooking some food without the need to ask the original creator of the
recipe for permission to do so and to pay royalties to him/her. You can
easily buy "Bordeaux Wine, made in Vietnam"....

> ... People (still) do have de-facto the freedom to copy, use and
> re-distribute every SW.
>
>Do you mean they have access to source code and can study and modify
>it, too? Or do you mean that they have access to binaries.

No, of course only the binaries. But that is all what they are interested
in in general.

>If the latter, then they cannot study and cannot modify.

The end user does not need that.
(And on a side note: I prefer to have a program that works, even if I
cannot study it, than one which I can study, but don't get it to work. And
as the time of this writing, this is unfortunately still often the case
when it comes to Windows vs. GNU/Linux).

>What happens
>is that they become attached to the user interfaces and data formats
>that the binary code introduces. They become trapped -- unable to
>learn, with learning and ways of doing business that are felt to be
>expensive to change.

I agree, that there is a danger of becoming trapped in data formats. But as
long as they can stick with the old way, then this is not much of a problem.

>Obviously, few wish to study; but some do. If you make study
>impractical, then you are similar to the person who says that a doctor
>is someone who knows to give you a few different types of pill, but
>nothing else. Obviously, you are better off with such a doctor in
>town than no doctor at all. But a `traditionally' trained physician
>may do more good, and a properly trained one can handle situations for
>which a few pills are inadequate.

That's why I say "Open the Source". I think, that this works
_in_our_situation_ better/easier - at least in the short run - than a non
existing conception of the "Freedom of Software".

> They don't care about licenses, ....
>
>Right. I understand that. I would not care either, except that I
>must. Most people I know are similar.

Poor you <g>. Therefore I am not favouring the "OSS" approach over the
"Free Software" approach in general, but only in our case here.

>Education is necessary. Otherwise, people will not bother to get a
>clue; and they will end up as backward neo-colonial dependents.

Well, while they have in Singapore already programmes for Internet addicts
(not joking), I am still waiting for treatment centres against MS addiction ;)

>backward neo-colonial dependents

Well, I am dependent on air. Where is the problem?
Dependency becomes a problem, if the supply can run short, or be made short.
See what I wrote above. How can MS create a short supply of their SW here
in Vietnam?

Historically, the "developed" nations got usually rich (amongst others) by
exploiting the now developing countries. Maybe this is one of the very few
instances, where it is the other way round: People in Vietnam benefit (I
don't say "get rich"!) from MS spending a bit of money on their
programmers, without giving directly something in return. Do you see a
problem with that? (or are you only a bit jealous <g>?)

> The missing possibility to study and modify the program (due to the
> lack of the source) is not considered as a lack of "freedom" - same
> like the missing possibility to peek into your bathroom from the
> street is not considered as a lack of "freedom".
>
>This is a good example of where education is useful, since the right
>to study is normally considered quite different from the right to
>invade someone else's privacy.

(Side note: "Privacy" is a very society/cultural dependent issue)
I guess a number of Vietnamese think, that MS does not publish the sources,
because they would be too embarrassed to reveal their lousy coding <g>. The
other thing which would happen, is that a number of Vietnamese companies
would just simply swap the opening screen (and maybe melody) and thus
"produce" "Thang Long Windows". Remember: nobody stops you here to do
exactly that. While this might be obvious with well-known packages like MS
Windows, it works well with less known SW, if the sources are available.
They understand that MS would not like this very much and therefore does
not reveal the sources. Not much associated with "freedom".....

>This is a good example of where education is useful

Of course, education is necessary. But to me it seems we /here in Vietnam/
have the choice: Do a lot of "education" about issues which are alien to
most (the concept of "Freedom of Software"), and THEN campaign for "Free
Software"
or
just start to campaign for "Open up your sources!" (getting the results
immediately) and in parallel do education about the Freedom which it brings....

Cheerio ...
Stefan

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