You may remember a few days ago that Bill Gates told an audience in Malaysia that "open source kills jobs". Actually, what Gates is quoted in that article as saying is "...open source software is not the way to go if they [governments and companies] are in the business of creating jobs and intellectual property."


Notice that the sentence in fact makes no sense; companies and governments never create intellectual property, they can only encourage or discourage individuals with talent to do so. As we frequently point out, this is Yet Another Instance of the continual psyop waged by Gates and others by perveting the English language. But the Malaysian government wasn't paying attention anyway. This article from silicon.de (German) (English, sort of)

Die Regierung hat ihre Behörden verpflichtet, Open-Source-Software den Vorzug zu geben. Der 'Malaysian Public Sector Open Source Software Masterplan' sieht vor, dass bis 2005 etwa 60 Prozent aller neuen Server Linux-kompatibel sein müssen, ebenso ein Drittel der Verwaltungsinfrastruktur. ...Parallel dazu wurde auch das Open-Source-Competence-Center eröffnet, das als Anlaufstelle für alle Fragen und Aktivitäten rund um Open Source dienen soll. Derzeit haben rund 10 Prozent aller Regierungsbehörden Linux auch auf dem Desktop laufen, wie die malaysische Zeitung The Star berichtet.

When I find this in English, I'll post it; but for the moment it only seems to be in German.


Update:

First, here's a pretty good answer to Bill Gates arguments about job loss in an article in the Singapore Business Times, in which the author Tang Weng Fai concludes that although Linux is disruptive, it doesn't kill jobs:

Recall that Nicholas Carr, a previously obscure writer, shot to fame (or infamy, depending on which point of view you hold) when he claimed in an article published in the Harvard Business Review that IT doesn't matter because it's effectively become a commodity...So one could argue that software can be commoditised, thus losing its power to create value, and then leap to the conclusion that this in turn creates a market where low value-added commodities are freely traded. That is a real threat that deserves consideration...Yes, jobs will be killed in the creation of commodity-type Linux applications, whatever these may be...But there's another side to the coin. Linux creates as well as kills jobs. Indeed, that's true of any disruptive technology that threatens the status quo.

Next, in fact there's a lot out there in English on this subject, I just wasn't looking for it in the right places and missed the announcements several days ago. Here's an article from LinuxWorld.com.au with all the details, and here is a PDF presentation which tells more about the drafting of the plan. Note that "Sovereignty and Security" are placed above "Financial Benefits" on page 7, which describes the motivation for the move to FOSS. The presentation is interesting, so if you're interested in why countries are talking about switching to FOSS, I suggest you read it.