Fifth Estate

This is in reference to the article titled "No such thing as a free launch" (sic) by Conrado R. Banal III ("Breaktime", PDI 10 Feb 2005).

Mr. Banal seems to be either very confused or is trying to deliberately mislead his readers. Free software, for Mr. Banal's information, is software which, once obtained, may be used, copied, studied, modified and redistributed. In other words, the term "free", is used in the context of free as in free speech or freedom of speech (malaya in Tagalog). This is very different from Mr. Banal's erroneous understanding of free as is free lunch (libre or walang bayad in Tagalog). All of his statements regarding Linux's "freeness" are therefore pointless.

In the proper context, almost all Linux software are indeed free. I should point out that there are also quite a lot of free software available for Windows such as Firefox (a web browser which is a "safer" alternative for MS Internet Explorer) and OpenOffice.org (a productivity suite similar to and mostly compatible with MS Office).

Mr. Banal then goes on to cite obtuse "facts" in an effort to malign Linux. One can only guess what his motivations are for doing so. In the IT biz, this is called FUD or fear, uncertainty and doubt. Spreading FUD is a marketing strategy usually employed by companies with inferior products. More often than not, FUD is usually associated with a certain company called Microsoft.

He writes that certain European outfits that "decided" to switch to Linux are rethinking their move. Either Mr. Banal is a bare-faced liar or is utterly misinformed. Since he didn't cite any actual "fact", I will assume he is referring to the switchover of the German Parliament and the Munich City (Germany) government from Windows to Linux. These are the two cases which Mr. Banal wrote about in an earlier article, imaginatively titled "No such thing as free hunch" ("Breaktime", PDI 09 Nov 2004).

In the case of the German Parliament, some network problems (Windows clients can't connect to the internet via the Linux servers) were encountered during the switchover phase, but eventually fixed. I suspect the problem was caused by Microsoft's penchant for "improving" published standards.

In the Munich City government case (Project LiMux [project site in German]), concerns about software patents briefly delayed the bidding process of the migration project. These were eventually cleared up. The migration process is currently ongoing and is targeted for completion by 2008.

Note that in both cases the changeover to Linux were either successfully completed or currently being implemented. Mr. Banal's statement in his 09 Nov. 2004 article that they "had to stop [a similar] changeover to Linux" is an outright lie. I leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine the actual facts (hint: google.com).

Mr. Banal then writes: "To make the 'free' operating system run other programs, you have to use software that you can only buy from -- where else? -- Linux." I have never seen or heard a more nonsensical statement as this, even from a congressman. There is no such commercial entity called "Linux" where one can buy anything. Mr. Banal is probably referring to one of those companies which provide Linux distributions such as Red Hat or SuSE. If that's the case, he is still hopelessly wrong. One can choose to buy a Linux distribution, but since all Linux distributions are based on free software, one can also obtain it for free (free as in libre). It may be freely downloaded from one of several hundreds (more likely thousands) of web and FTP sites. The difference is that you get a nice box, printed manuals and some technical support if you buy.

Another FUD from Mr. Banal is that according to a certain website (zone-h.org) 19.2% of hacker attacks were against Windows and an "amazing" 60% against Linux. Like most statistics that "journalists" use to forward their agenda, the numbers mentioned are meaningless. First, Mr. Banal neglects to mention that the attacks are actually "website attacks" or attacks on the web server software or extensions to it. Since a web server is not an integral part of any operating system, wether it's running on Linux or Windows is irrelevant. Second, he "forgot" to mention that the numbers are not based on any scientific study but on "user submitted" data. This means that anybody could go to the zone-h website and say "Hey doods, I just attacked the inq7.net site. I am leet haxor!" Nowadays, defacing a website is so trivial that even Jinggoy or Bong could do it if they were so inclined.

If one were to visit the zone-h website the very first thing he'll notice are "Advisories". Advisories are something like press releases issued by companies or individuals to alert the public on the existence of vulnerabilities or weaknesses in an operating system or a piece of software. A vulnerability is usually a programming error in software which may be taken advantage of by a malicious user to gain access to or, in the worst case, total control of somebody else's computer. Mr. Banal completely ignored the fact that most of the advisories were for Windows or Windows applications which are difficult, if not impossible, to uninstall.

Mr. Banal, if you don't want to use or are afraid of using Linux, fine, but please don't use your position to discourage other people from doing so.

Currently, Linux and open source software in general are at a state where it is a viable replacement for Windows and proprietary Windows software. Philippine government institutions and LGUs would greatly benefit by opting for or switching to Linux. The issue of cost which Mr. Banal tried to use in his arguments does not apply in the Philippine setting. We are still a largely non-computerized country so the cost of retraining or re-programming of specialized software, which is majority of the cost in the European scenarios, is probably negligible. We also have more than enough capable IT professionals who can support Linux such that it's not absolutely necessary to buy technical support from foreign companies. Heck, we even have a Linux distribution of our own called Bayanihan Linux!

# posted by KidPogi : 1:43 AM