Re: [OSS] [Fwd: [vnit] (sjMerc) Vietnam embracing open-source products]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Vern Weitzel" <weitzel@undp.org.vn>
To: <locdv@moste.gov.vn>
Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2003 6:08 PM
Subject: [OSS] [Fwd: [vnit] (sjMerc) Vietnam embracing open-source products]

> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: [vnit] (sjMerc) Vietnam embracing open-source products
> Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 10:00:53 -0800
> From: J Do <jdo@pacificlinks.org>
> To: <vnit-l@coombs.anu.edu.au>
>
>
>
> http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/7139304.htm
>
> Posted on Thu, Oct. 30, 2003
> *Vietnam embracing open-source products*
> *Nation's solution to software piracy: `Eliminate Microsoft'*
> ****
> By* Ben Stocking*
> *Mercury News Vietnam Bureau*
>
> *HANOI - *Carefully, quietly, Vietnam is plotting another revolution.
>
> This time its foe is not a foreign army with a global reach, but a
> foreign corporation whose reach extends worldwide.
>
> ``We are trying step by step to eliminate Microsoft,'' said Nguyen Trung
> Quynh of Vietnam's Ministry of Science and Technology. Quynh and other
> government tech officials want Vietnam to be on the cutting edge of an
> international movement to embrace open-source software -- products that
> can be downloaded from the Internet for free and perform the same tasks
> as Microsoft Windows or Office.
>
> The initiative is Vietnam's solution to software piracy, a rampant
> problem that threatens to derail the country's economic aspirations.
>
> Vietnam implemented a trade agreement with the United States in 2001
> that requires the government to bring down the piracy rate. And the
> government also needs to do that to meet its goal of joining the World
> Trade Organization by 2005.
>
> Microsoft Windows and Office cost at least $140 in Vietnam -- way out of
> reach for most people, where the per capita annual income is roughly $420.
>
> The economic logic of using software that's free is hard to resist, and
> more and more countries seem willing to take a chance on it. China,
> Japan and South Korea recently announced that they will work together to
> develop an open-source alternative to Microsoft.
>
> Open source is especially appealing to developing countries such as
> Vietnam, which see it as a way to help close the technological divide
> that separates rich and poor nations.
>
> Only 2 million of Vietnam's 80 million people have computers and, of all
> the countries where Microsoft maintains an office, Vietnam is the
> smallest market.
>
> But Microsoft products are everywhere in Vietnam, and very few shell out
> the money for licensed copies. Almost 97 percent of the programs used in
> Vietnam have been illegally copied, costing Microsoft an estimated $40
> million to $50 million a year.
>
> ``Piracy is very serious and widespread in Vietnam,'' said Tran Luu
> Chuong, a university professor who is helping devise the country's
> open-source policies.
>
> Even government officials have been known to use illegal software.
> There's a shop right next door to Vietnam's Ministry of Trade that does
> a brisk business selling illegal software, movies and music. A pirated
> copy of Windows and Office goes for no more than $10.
>
> Microsoft's chief representative in Vietnam, Ngo Phuc Cuong, spends much
> of his time lobbying for better enforcement of intellectual-property
> laws -- a task that can be as frustrating as an inbox full of spam.
>
> ``People don't perceive pirating as stealing,'' Cuong said. ``Sometimes
> they tell me very proudly, `My boy can copy your software very easily!' ''
>
> People know they can use the pirated products with impunity. And they
> have grown comfortable using Microsoft, which, in its illegal form, has
> dominated the market here for years. So getting them to switch to open
> source won't be easy. But bureaucrats at the Ministry of Science and
> Technology are determined to try.
>
> *Open-source plan*
>
> They are promoting a plan that would require all state-owned companies
> and government ministries to use open source by 2005. And they would
> require all computers assembled in Vietnam to be sold with open-source
> products installed on them.
>
> The prime minister is expected to take up their proposal this fall.
>
> To get young people comfortable with the free software, the government
> plans to distribute computers to 5,000 schools nationwide next year --
> all of them equipped with open source.
>
> ``We are trying to tell people what open source is, how to use it and
> what the benefits are,'' said Chuong, the university professor.
>
> Chuong and other open-source advocates also maintain that open source is
> more secure than Microsoft, an advantage that is very appealing to the
> security-conscious Vietnamese government.
>
> Microsoft argues that its products are just as secure, more reliable and
> worth the money. ``We can afford to reinvest and keep innovation
> going,'' said Cuong. ``And we have a whole network of support around the
> region. If fixes are necessary, we are here.''
>
> Open source is so named because the codes that programmers use to write
> it are available for anyone to inspect on the Internet. It is part of an
> international movement -- as much philosophical as technological --
> whose proponents believe that no corporation should stand between a
> computer and its user. A community of academics and idealistic computer
> programmers develop the open-source products online, collaborating to
> improve them.
>
> The United Nations Development Program, which sees open-source software
> as a way to strengthen Vietnam's technology sector, has been encouraging
> the government to pursue it.
>
> ``They are quite serious about what they're doing,'' said Vern Weitzel,
> Web manager at the UNDP's Hanoi office. ``They've put in a lot of effort
> at the policy level, and this is quite encouraging.''
>
> *Young, but powerful*
>
> The open-source movement is still young, but its advocates predict it
> will eventually turn the software industry upside down. ``You cannot
> stop it,'' said Jordi Carrasco-Munoz, an economic adviser at the
> European Community's Hanoi office. ``Members of parliaments around the
> world are going to ask, `Why are we paying millions of dollars for
> Microsoft licensing fees when we can get a substitute that's just as
> good for free?' ''
>
> The main open-source tools are Linux -- a free alternative to the
> Windows operating system -- and OpenOffice, a free alternative to
> Microsoft Office, with word processing and spreadsheet programs. Two
> Vietnamese companies have recently developed Vietnamese versions of
> both, and the country's two biggest computer assemblers are already
> loading open source onto all their new machines.
>
> ``We can't totally sweep out Microsoft,'' Quynh said. ``But we hope that
> new users will start using open source.''
>
> Before Vietnamese versions of OpenOffice and Linux were developed, open
> source was just an abstraction here, said Carrasco-Munoz. ``Now you dump
> this CD on your computer, you install it, you reboot. Bye-bye Microsoft!''
>
> Cuong, Microsoft's Vietnam representative, acknowledges that open source
> poses a threat to commercial software companies. ``They give away
> innovation,'' he said.
>
> Microsoft recently slashed its prices in Thailand, offering a
> Windows/Office package for just $40 after the government there announced
> plans for promoting open source. But Cuong said the company doesn't plan
> to cut prices in Vietnam -- at least for now.
>
> ``We're willing to talk about a reduced price to the government based on
> their commitment to using legal software,'' he said. ``We encourage the
> government to lead by example.''/.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Address to post to all list members: oss@isoc-vn.org (NOT: OSS@isoc-vn.org
!)
>
> URL of List Archives:
> http://www.isoc-vn.org/cgi-bin/mojo/mojo.cgi?f=archive&l=oss
> URL to Subscribe to this list:
> http://www.isoc-vn.org/cgi-bin/mojo272/mojo.cgi?f=n&l=oss
>
> To unsubscribe from: OSS, just follow this link:
> http://www.isoc-vn.org/cgi-bin/mojo272/mojo.cgi?f=u&l=oss
> Click the link, or copy and paste the address into your browser,
> or send a mailto:oss-owner@isoc-vn.org to request manual unsubscription
> by the list administrator.
>

To facilitate co-ordination regarding the introduction of OSS SW in Vietnam

Subscribe to OSS:

Subscribe | Unsubscribe