Lately I’ve been dreaming up what a free (as in beer) open-source based office environment would look like. I’ve kind of had the idea that our church would be a great opportunity to build an office from the ground up based on open-source tools. The obvious reason for doing that is because a lot of open source software is completely free, so it would save money. The not so obvious rational is the latest great improvements in open source software (such as Open Office 2.0, hailed as the MS office killer). Also, Q likes Macs, Jeff likes PC’s, and a lot of the really good open source software is cross-platform (i.e. it works on Linux, Windows and OS X), so I thought that was a bonus.
To that end, I was trying to do my deal where I try to convince Jeff that my idea is a good idea, and he did his deal where he laughs at me for being nerdy.
Good fun, normal happening around our church.
But it got me to thinking; why do I care about this? MS Office works, and it is easily Microsoft’s best software suite, with Outlook being their single best piece of software, especially when coupled with Exchange server for the back-end. So, why do I even bother sorting this out in my head. I know it is an uphill battle to convince anyone to stop using Microsoft. Do I just want to look cool and smart? Or is something else moving me forward.
This thought bugged me because I’m trying more to care less about trivialities, but I couldn’t get this idea out of my mind. So, I asked myself why would I care so much about having an open-source church office, and why should I care about open-source software in general.
An answer came to my mind towards the end of the day, and it has to do with a recent decision of the Massachusetts state government. (Here is a Forbes article about it for the less geeky)
Please read that (the slashdot article is short) before continuing, because I don’t want to completely recap it.
One of the things the UN says is widening the poverty gap (and that widens it in the US) is the lack of internet or computers for the poor (internationally, and in the US this is true).
Right now, a license for Microsoft Windows XP Home costs $100 US, and a license for MS Word costs around $150 with the purchase of a new PC.
In contrast MIT is developing a sub $100 Laptop with a crank powered battery recharger aimed at getting computing into developing nations.
Microsoft has locked out everyone that it can from interacting with its software. The “.doc” files your so used to using in Word cannot be opened by other programs (well, open office 2.0 can read them, but apparently the legality is a grey area due to copyright protection laws, and they don’t always look right when opened non MS software). The same goes for all other MS software. Even it’s ability to file share with Mac’s and Linux systems is sketchy, and they like to keep it that way to make it hard to compete against them.
Microsoft wants you to keep paying more for your software than you do for your hardware. They subsidize dell hardware to keep Linux off of it since Linux is completely free. Dell started to offer Linux pre-installed on some of their systems, and the cost for the computer comes up more expensive than it does with Windows on it.
But, the poor, the developing nations, they can’t get the internet. They can’t compete in an age where information is sold for more than goods and services without a means to find information, and to distribute their ideas quickly. And as long as there is no way to move computing into those nations, and poorer areas of our nation, we are going to continue to accelerate faster and faster past them, while they have a harder and harder time catching up with the learning curve.
Don’t hear me saying Microsoft is the anti-christ or evil, Microsoft isn’t trying to keep the poor people poor, and the rich people rich, they are just trying to make money like any business wants too. Their business strategy makes good business sense, but a side effect of it now is the problem I’m talking about.
But, they are doing this by making the next version of office incompatible with the open-document format, which is a standard developed to help make documents readable by free and not free software. This protects their proprietary grip on this market. It means other software has to compete in their court.
And, Massachusetts is aware that government documents should be readable by poor people without access to expensive Microsoft software, so they are going to lose MS Office by 2007 unless it decides to offer support for this open-document format.
Read about the petition to get MS to support this format here.
I finally decided, I was upset because I want to break down this barrier in this technology / information field that God has made me to love. I want information to be readily accessible in other countries the way it is in the US, and readily accessible for poor people and the people in rural areas in the US the way it is for people in suburbs and rich parts of the cities.
I want Niger to have the internet, and I want MS operating systems and office suites to play nice with the competition, so there can be competition to drive the prices down, and so Africans can afford computers.
I want to embrace the slightly harder learning curve of standards compliant open source (and free) software, so that we can push MS and Apple to make their software standards compliant. I want to embrace that hardship for the same reason I paid more last week for fair trade wine, and for the same reason I’m proud that our church pays more for fair trade coffee.
I’m not communist, I don’t want to see everyone completely equal. But the world is getting flatter everyday (and we are looking more at a global economy all the time). I just want to make sure that the poor countries have a chance to catch up, and not just be exploited for natural resources and cheap labor by the contries that horde their own natural resources (or information) and circle their wagons to protect their proprietary secrets.
Information should be free to everyone, even the poorest people in the world. Massachusetts gets that. I just want other people to get that as well.