On Sunday 22 September 2002 09:47, stan reichardt wrote: > Next month marks the 5th anniversary of the leaking > of the infamous Halloween Documents from an Increasingly Speaking of the Halloween docs, I came across a follow up article on the Peruvian Open Source software initiative. It seems that Microsoft and it's local astro turf organizations could not overcome Senator Villanueva's arguments but have instead resorted to political machinations to defeat the initiative. Here is an excerpt from an article at Advogato.org: http://www.advogato.org/article/517.html Additional info on the progress of the can be found here at the Peruvian GNU site: http://www.gnu.org.pe/main.html EXCERPT: Remember Dr. Villanueva and the Peruvian software bill? A month ago the linux world was full of it. The letter received massive support worldwide; the publicity gave the impetus to the first Peruvian international conference on free software in government, with among others Miguel de Icaza. And the bill made it to the committee stage, beating off all comers: as far as logic goes any opponents didn't have a leg to stand on. Microsoft's normal tactics in this situation are to work through local Software Associations; unfortunately, in this case the bill was too well argued (in terms of the need for the state to use open formats to store public data, to use software with code which can be inspected for national security reasons, to encourage the development of skilled programmers rather than button pushers etc) for the local associations to make much impact. So, Microsoft has had to roll out its real weapons: money and power. Bill Gates has, according to the paper El Comercio, offered the Peruvian Government large amounts of money for its educational and social programs (presumably in the form of donations of Microsoft software - the tactic used in Mexico - though this isn't known for sure yet), and has sent for Peruvian President Toledo, who is now in Seattle visiting the great man himself. The bill has been put on hold awaiting President Toledo's return (without, apparently any legal justification). I think its a safe bet to assume Bill has enough money to buy a President. The sources for this story are all in Spanish, and appeared on the Spanish-language Slashdot barrapunto. So I'm appending translations here. First the original Barrapunto story (from : http://barrapunto.com/article.pl?sid=02/07/11/086235) It seems that the Micro$oft lobby has counter-attacked. In Peru President Bush of the United States has started to apply the pressure to stop the Peruvian Free Software Bill through his embassador, Hamilton. Congress has approved Peruvian president Alejandro Toledo's [...] trip to the US to meet Bill Gates. According to the newspaper El Commercio, the apparent aim of the Peruvian president's visit to Seattle is to ask for economic aid from Bill Gates, who may make a donation through the Gates Foundation to support the 'social and educational programs' of the peruvian government ... And worst of all, the law has gone back to first base as expressly requested by the commissions studying it while Toledo is away with the Micro$oft people -- -- Duaine Hechler Piano Tuning & Repair Pump Organ Rebuilding Member of the Piano Technicians Guild (314) 838-5587 dahechler@mlc.net
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC