For the Love of Microsoft

On the front page of today's The Jakarta Post, there is the headline Ministry's Microsoft love slows down open-source which connects with the mention of IGOS (Indonesia Go Open Source) in my previous post. As part of the IGOS initiative in 2004, five Government ministries signed a declaration to use open-source software. However, only the State Ministry of Research and Technology, has acted on the declaration, with 92 percent of its computers running open-source programs. Other ministries ... remain reluctant to use the software.

There is a clear lack of political will on the part of these other four ministries. One can only speculate as to why the Government is not serious about promoting free software, prefering instead to spend its very limited resources on paying licensing fees to Microsoft. A search on Google failed to find the IGOS's Internet Address on the first few pages and instead I tracked it down using Wikipedia. The site itself at http://www.igos.web.id is a sparce and clearly neglected site. On the opening page, the menu link item program is misspelled as pogram.

Of course, most home users are using pirated versions of Microsoft Windows XP and Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop, Corel Draw and so on, which is understandable as they are readily available and cost practically nothing. If you buy a new computer here, the vendor will happily offer to install as much pirated software as you'd like but you will not be asked first whether you'd like open-source software installed. It's may be an image thing as well. Microsoft, and especially Apple, are seen as "cool" but open-source products such as Linux and Open Office are are not. Technology in Indonesia is associated with status first and utility second.

A good summary of what's available by way of open-source software can be found at Open Source Living.