(Editor's Note: My apologies to all who have submitted articles for not posting them. My only excuse is I didn't know they were there. I had set up the CMS to send me an e-mail when anyone sent a submission. Unfortunately, this somehow got broken during the server's move to Costa Rica. I will endeavor to post the relevant back articles as I have time after my own personal move is completed.)

It was just yesterday (June 12 - ed.) when I first read of Brazil's decision to migrate a significant portion of their public sector infrastructure from the proprietary Microsoft Windows environment to free (and open source) solutions, such as GNU/Linux. I recall in the past when other nations had attempted this, at least one American company would choose to both publically and privately undermine these efforts. Sometimes, as in the case of Peru special law 1609, the Ambassador of my own nation would choose to disregard his objective role of serving the common American public interest, and instead promote the exclusive interests of a select predatory proprietary software vendor, at the expense of valid American commercial business interests, such as existing American Free and Open Source software vendors.

Similarly, I expected to hear various statements from those that oppose free and open source solutions in response to Brazil's actions. However, I did not expect these same false arguments to be made by one who claims to represent our community. So as you can imagine, it came as a surprise to read these things in Mr. Stanco's opinion piece here. Perhaps Mr. Stanco should read the very excellent letter from Peruvian Congressman Senior Villanueva Nunez, who explains well why it is both appropriate and necessary to use government procurement policy in this manner. Clearly there are people who do understand free software in relation to government policy; it is a shame the founder of the "The Center of Open Source & Government" appears not to.

Mr. Villanueva, among many others, explains why selecting free and open source solutions are non discriminatory, since this kind of law only specifies how goods have to be provided, any vendor is free to offer such solutions. Certainly, sovereign governments have the right to choose conditions of sale for products they procure. Governments in many ways may already choose to influence social policy and to encourage or discourage specific behavior through both direct and indirect financial means. Governments, as public institutions, do not spend money on their sole behalf, but on behalf of the people they represent, and as such has a direct responsibility to achieve the maximum value for the people's money that they spend. Not all value is solely by price or cost. Certainly, I believe no government or society should be forced to accept or tolerate what it feels are immoral or unethical business terms or practices. As such, I think Brazil's choice of procurement law is both a proper and just means for Brazil's government to socially and responsibly spend its people's money.

David Sugar

GNU Bayonne Maintainer