Religions and the Name of the Law

Richard,

I copied from two of your posts:

At 15:21 30.01.2003 +0000, you wrote:
-------------------------
>No wonder we see people in Vietnam saying "my software is gratis but
>not open source" and thinking that this is ok! They have only heard
>about the open source movement, and the open source movement does not
>say that ethics demands all software be open source. He thinks this
>is merely a practical preference.

I think, most people here know nothing about the Free Software Foundation,
nor the Open Source Initiative. They know nothing about the different
philosophies. For them it is only one issue. They might think, that Linux
is more stable than Windows (which gets less and less true), they might
think that it is more secure, and they know that it is a way to counter a
possible copyright enforcement drive by MS and consequently the Government
here.

At 22:23 30.01.2003 -0500, you wrote:
-------------------------
> Can you pls. explain me the difference between Free Software and Open
> Source Software, in a fairly "law-less" environment, i.e. licenses do
> not
> exist and/or are not enforceable.
>
>The difference is a matter of basic philosophical values. It is not
>affected by the legal situation of any particular country.

Ok, the philosophy of the FSF comes more from / targets more (but not
exclusively) the single SW developer and the community. The Open Source
Initiative stems more (but not exclusively) from the SW producing and using
businesses. The outcome of both - especially in a comparable legal vacuum -
is pretty much the same.

However, the oss@isoc-vn.org list is about/for neither of them, but about
state/government policy.

Let's take another situation:
Religion A says: "Thou shall not kill", because God said it, and the
prophet wrote it in the commandments. Religion B says: "People must not
murder", because the wise man said, and it is written in the Holy Book.
Both religions argue strongly about who is right. In comes the State (or
"Government" as you call it in the US): "We don't care about the religions.
For ... [obvious] ... reasons, we need a law (or other policies) to
regulate the issue". The outcome in all three cases is pretty much the
same. And in all three cases it is not perfect.

Problem: How to call the law/the policies? "The Law on Killing/The Killing
Act" or "The Law on Murder/The Murder Act"? Since there is no third
alternative, the Government might decide on "Killing", because it is the
more common term, needs less explanatory footnotes, etc., although Religion
B's philosophy might be a bit closer to the Government's politics. "Ouch"
cries Religion B: "You are supporting Religion A, and create a disadvantage
for us". OK, says the Government. We will include in our school's curricula
lessons about both and will educate the students about both religions'
point of view and approach. They can then decide, whether they want to do
it because of Religion A, or Religion B, or on humanitarian grounds, or
because of purely legal reasons (punishments and incentives). The outcome -
from the Government's point of view - is always pretty much the same.

It seems to me, that we are in a very similar situation here.

For the Government it is foremost about two closely related issues:
1) How to avoid increasing pressure from the US Government for not
complying to [mainly] MS' copyrights in its own offices (administration and
state-owned enterprises)?
2) How to avoid increasing pressure from the US Government for not
enforcing [mainly] MS' copyrights in the non-state sector (private
companies and individuals)?

Note, that unlike in other countries, to buy all the licenses (although
maybe some) is not a real option in USD-poor Vietnam.

There are two more - although probably less pressing - issues:
3) With which legal environment/preference for which licensing model
regarding SW to best support the "socio-economic" development of Vietnam?
4) How to maximize profits of local companies from SW export, thus
positively influencing the foreign trade balance?

If threats per 1) and 2) can be countered successfully, by providing
reasonable FS/OSS alternatives (whether they will be used or not does not
really matter), then it could be (I don't know), that the present "legal
vacuum" regarding SW licenses - and especially foreign companies'
copyrights - is the best way to fulfill targets 3) and 4). After all, it
was good enough to bring Vietnam to the status as it is now. An improvement
might be to ask local developers to make their sources available for fee
use. Whether you call this then "Free Software" or "Open Source Software"
does not matter from a Government's point of view.

The questions IMHO are,
A) (the pressing one) How to create an environment/scenario, where MS' best
compromise (regarding local and international consequences) is, not trying
to enforce their copyrights on mass-market products like Windows and Office
(i.e. where Vietnam is the most vulnerable).
B) (the less pressing one) How to counter MS SW's main remaining
disadvantages: the difficulty to localize the SW (and thus limiting the
wide spread use) due to missing sources.

And I hope, MS doesn't consider the old days' "domino theory": "If Vietnam
falls, then all the others will fall too" - although in this case it might
be true ;)

Stefan

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