[Ubuntu-SG] [Bulk] Re: South-East Asian FOSS Collaboration

Wed Aug 13 03:20:39 UTC 2008

On Wed, 2008-08-13 at 09:30 +0800, Chen Xiangpeng wrote:
> I think proprietary software adoption is a vicious cycle.
> 
> You train students in school (especially local polytechnics) to use
> proprietary software to equip them with "skills" to enable them to
> find a job in their respective industry. The reason why such training
> giving is that the industry demands them. Why does the industry demand
> them? It's probably due to 3 reasons:
> 
> 1. Proprietary Software is better in that industry.(Think Adobe
> Photoshop)
> 2. Strong lobbying by the proprietary software makers. (Microsoft
> anyone?)
> 3. Industry is deeply ingrained in use of the proprietary software.
> 
> The education syllabus in Singapore is more or less steered by the
> industry's requirements. As John mentioned, Singaporeans are a
> practical lot. A few years ago, most local companies running IIS
> switched to Apache not because of Free Software principles, but due to
> the fact that IIS happened to be wacked left, right and center by the
> Code-Red worm while Apache is unaffected. For the same reasons, most
> companies that run Linux adopted it because of the low cost and
> relatively higher security than Windows and not for the Free Software
> principles. I honestly think that this isn't going to change anytime
> soon. 
> 
> I don't think we need to resort to "catching" people for using pirated
> software. There is already enough campaigning done by the IPOS and
> government on the issue of Intellectual Property(that's another issue
> for another day). In Singapore, getting people to adopt free software
> is both easy and difficult at the same time. We're a conformist
> society, just get the government to endorse Free Software and we'll be
> well on our way to becoming a Free Software society :P It's convincing
> the government that is hard.

For this , you must look from the govt point-of-view too. Why would they
send message to businesses that Singapore prefer Free stuff over their
products? Unlike US and China who can do whatever they want with foreign
companies (mind you , even US govt can't do much with M$) Singapore must
rely on foreign companies to create jobs. The only exception is the
cigarette companies for obvious reasons.

As for costs of using M$ software, money must be used somewhere.
Supporting businesses , be it local or foreign , is a good way to
attract foreign companies and also encourage local businesses. Singapore
is , if I am not wrong , one of the best and easiest places to start a
company. For all the talk about FOSS , we also must remember that if
every school and institutions and govt ministries uses FOSS , companies
(who are in business of making money) will think twice about setting up
a HQ here.

A lot of business , as much as I hate to say it , depends on microsoft.
Even local company , creative, isn't Linux friendly no matter how much
complain they get. That says a lot about how businesses think about
microsoft and FOSS in general. In short , you gotta spend money to make
money and spending in microsoft , even if its mean getting the children
becoming a slave to an entity(be it microsoft or cigarette or whatever)
is worth it from govt/business point-of-view. 

So the only way govt will even consider FOSS is that there are more FOSS
companies in Singapore. Either from overseas or home-grown. Only that
way we will have enough balls in our court to show the govt that FOSS
can generate income and also provide jobs for Singaporeans. Remember
that the first thing people will do when they lose their rice bowl is to
riot and govt , if they want to stay in power, must not destroy that
rice bowl. If not who will pay the kind of salaries that they get? :P

Summary is that , we depends on foreign companies for our survival.
Singapore govt won't move a muscle to show they are unfriendly to any
business. Look at odex and an australian guy who sues everyone website
in Singapore for a obvious patent a few month back. Clearly , Singapore
govt is business friendly and it MUST be business friendly for Singapore
to survive. All Singapore got are people and nothing more.

> 
> The model of FOSS development will actually evolve a product to the
> point where it's technically and aesthetically superior to proprietary
> software. But before that, convincing a pragmatic crowd will be hard.
> 
> Having said all that, you can attract people to desktop linux in 2
> ways:
> 
> 1. Appealing to the technical crowd
> 2. Appealing to the people who like cool and shiny stuff.
> 
> I've convinced more people to switch to Linux by showing them compiz
> fusion than giving them a nice long lecture on the merits of free
> software and the long history of how rms struggled to develop the GNU
> system till the appearance of Linus Torvalds with his linux kernel.
> For this same reason, a lot of the younger generation are switching to
> macs. Making Linux a cool and pretty OS to run (and free, which REALLY
> appeals to Singaporeans) could be a direction we can take. 
> 
> XP
> 
> 
> On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 6:28 PM, John Thng <johnthng83 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>         On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 3:41 PM, Maung Myat Thu @ Billy Aung
>         Myint <billy at ubuntu.sg> wrote:
>         
>                 
>                 
>                 That depends on the institution. If that institution
>                 says laptop comes
>                 
>                 with openoffice and firefox, I have no doubt HP and
>                 Toshiba will do
>                 that. 
>                 
>                 
>                 Yes , I never understand why they have to upgrade the
>                 office ... amazing
>                 waste of public funds.
>                 
>                 
>                 There are a few competitions .. such as google summer
>                 of code. I can't
>                 think of local competitions though.
>                 
>                 
>                 Thats why we should start with schools and MOE. No
>                 parents here? I sure
>                 would like to hear from a parent.
>                 
>                 
>                 That you gotta talk to the govt. We been kissing asses
>                 everytime. BSA ,
>                 RIAA and so on. Singapore economic depends on
>                 stability of govt and
>                 people and business. Change is not what govt wants.
>                 The same people are
>                 doing what they been doing the same things over over
>                 40 years. Why
>                 expect any change soon?
>                 
>                 
>         
>         Ya, but currently, they are over-dependent on microsoft
>         office. There might be ooxml files that is not the iso ooxml
>         floating around. They should all be educated and try not to
>         save in ooxml yet.
>         
>         I pity those innocent users who saved in the 1000-flawed ooxml
>         format that is forced by default nowadays. Too bad there's no
>         policy to warn users beforehand before they use it.
>         
>         And btw, the greatest act is to let those downloading and
>         using pirated software be caught, whether it is home user or
>         office user. MP3/Hollywood Movies have done that, why not
>         apply it to software. There's lack of these law/act ... But I
>         don't think they would do so, since propriety companies are
>         controlling the anti-piracy organisation. Doing so will
>         severely damage and force people to use legal software, in
>         which they will slowly lose popularity.
>         
>         Ya, google summer of code is programming contest, but I'm not
>         referring to these type. I'm referring to those who can use
>         gimp to make the best image on the spot competition. Using
>         those open source audio trackers to make the best music, using
>         video editing tools to make the nicest looking video. It'll
>         appeal to wide range of audience.
>         
>         For schools, I think they sign up those yearly academic price
>         plan, whenever there's new release, they can upgrade the
>         software for free due to subscription. What I want to see is
>         they should include OpenOffice.org alongside with Microsoft
>         Office at least.
>         
>         And I forget to tell, most teachers are windows trained. Even
>         though there's a group last time that want to bring oss out in
>         education it died cos of 0 activity I guess.
>         http://groups.google.sg/group/ossie-sg?hl=en
>         This is the link. You can check it out. Sometimes we need to
>         unite various groups and plan together, else say is one thing,
>         implement is another.
>         
>         Singaporeans are much practical, the spirit of open source is
>         to convince it is better than proprietary. But I prefer the
>         spirit of Free Software, which is about sharing. But to normal
>         users, good they use(whether it's pirated or not), not good
>         they don't use. Many prefer to use pirated photoshop than to
>         ask them use gimp. (that's why I highlight there's a need to
>         "catch" these users and give them good warning)
>         
>         Regards
>         John
>         
>         
>         --
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>         
> 
> 