Vietnam embracing open-source products
HANOI - Carefully,
quietly,
Vietnam is
plotting
another
revolution.
This time its
foe is not a
foreign
army with a
global
reach, but
a foreign
corporation
whose reach extends worldwide.
``We are trying step by step to eliminate Microsoft,'' said Nguyen
Trung Quynh of Vietnam's Ministry of Science and Technology.
Quynh and other government tech officials want Vietnam to be on
the cutting edge of an international movement to embrace
open-source software -- products that can be downloaded from
the Internet for free and perform the same tasks as Microsoft
Windows or Office.
The initiative is Vietnam's solution to software piracy, a rampant
problem that threatens to derail the country's economic
aspirations.
Vietnam implemented a trade agreement with the United States in
2001 that requires the government to bring down the piracy rate.
And the government also needs to do that to meet its goal of
joining the World Trade Organization by 2005.
Microsoft Windows and Office cost at least $140 in Vietnam -- way
out of reach for most people, where the per capita annual income
is roughly $420.
The economic logic of using software that's free is hard to resist,
and more and more countries seem willing to take a chance on it.
China, Japan and South Korea recently announced that they will
work together to develop an open-source alternative to Microsoft.
Open source is especially appealing to developing countries such
as Vietnam, which see it as a way to help close the technological
divide that separates rich and poor nations.
Only 2 million of Vietnam's 80 million people have computers and,
of all the countries where Microsoft maintains an office, Vietnam is
the smallest market.
But Microsoft products are everywhere in Vietnam, and very few
shell out the money for licensed copies. Almost 97 percent of the
programs used in Vietnam have been illegally copied, costing
Microsoft an estimated $40 million to $50 million a year.
``Piracy is very serious and widespread in Vietnam,'' said Tran
Luu Chuong, a university professor who is helping devise the
country's open-source policies.
Even government officials have been known to use illegal
software. There's a shop right next door to Vietnam's Ministry of
Trade that does a brisk business selling illegal software, movies
and music. A pirated copy of Windows and Office goes for no more
than $10.
Microsoft's chief representative in Vietnam, Ngo Phuc Cuong,
spends much of his time lobbying for better enforcement of
intellectual-property laws -- a task that can be as frustrating as an
inbox full of spam.
``People don't perceive pirating as stealing,'' Cuong said.
``Sometimes they tell me very proudly, `My boy can copy your
software very easily!' ''
People know they can use the pirated products with impunity. And
they have grown comfortable using Microsoft, which, in its illegal
form, has dominated the market here for years. So getting them
to switch to open source won't be easy. But bureaucrats at the
Ministry of Science and Technology are determined to try.
Open-source plan
They are promoting a plan that would require all state-owned
companies and government ministries to use open source by
2005. And they would require all computers assembled in Vietnam
to be sold with open-source products installed on them.
The prime minister is expected to take up their proposal this fall.
To get young people comfortable with the free software, the
government plans to distribute computers to 5,000 schools
nationwide next year -- all of them equipped with open source.
``We are trying to tell people what open source is, how to use it
and what the benefits are,'' said Chuong, the university professor.
Chuong and other open-source advocates also maintain that open
source is more secure than Microsoft, an advantage that is very
appealing to the security-conscious Vietnamese government.
Microsoft argues that its products are just as secure, more reliable
and worth the money. ``We can afford to reinvest and keep
innovation going,'' said Cuong. ``And we have a whole network
of support around the region. If fixes are necessary, we are here.''
Open source is so named because the codes that programmers
use to write it are available for anyone to inspect on the Internet.
It is part of an international movement -- as much philosophical as
technological -- whose proponents believe that no corporation
should stand between a computer and its user. A community of
academics and idealistic computer programmers develop the
open-source products online, collaborating to improve them.
The United Nations Development Program, which sees
open-source software as a way to strengthen Vietnam's
technology sector, has been encouraging the government to
pursue it.
``They are quite serious about what they're doing,'' said Vern
Weitzel, Web manager at the UNDP's Hanoi office. ``They've put
in a lot of effort at the policy level, and this is quite encouraging.''
Young, but powerful
The open-source movement is still young, but its advocates
predict it will eventually turn the software industry upside down.
``You cannot stop it,'' said Jordi Carrasco-Munoz, an economic
adviser at the European Community's Hanoi office. ``Members of
parliaments around the world are going to ask, `Why are we
paying millions of dollars for Microsoft licensing fees when we can
get a substitute that's just as good for free?' ''
The main open-source tools are Linux -- a free alternative to the
Windows operating system -- and OpenOffice, a free alternative to
Microsoft Office, with word processing and spreadsheet programs.
Two Vietnamese companies have recently developed Vietnamese
versions of both, and the country's two biggest computer
assemblers are already loading open source onto all their new
machines.
``We can't totally sweep out Microsoft,'' Quynh said. ``But we
hope that new users will start using open source.''
Before Vietnamese versions of OpenOffice and Linux were
developed, open source was just an abstraction here, said
Carrasco-Munoz. ``Now you dump this CD on your computer, you
install it, you reboot. Bye-bye Microsoft!''
Cuong, Microsoft's Vietnam representative, acknowledges that
open source poses a threat to commercial software companies.
``They give away innovation,'' he said.
Microsoft recently slashed its prices in Thailand, offering a
Windows/Office package for just $40 after the government there
announced plans for promoting open source. But Cuong said the
company doesn't plan to cut prices in Vietnam -- at least for now.
``We're willing to talk about a reduced price to the government
based on their commitment to using legal software,'' he said.
``We encourage the government to lead by example.''
By Ben Stocking - The Mercury News - October 30, 2003.
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