بيان:تعقيب على الاجتماع بوزير الاتصالات عقب الوقفة الاحتجاجية يوم 30-12-2012/English
Representatives of the free and open source software demand the minister to pursue his promises
The free and open source software (FOSS) community demands from the minister of communication to pursue promises of a gradual move to the use of free and open source software in the government.
The wrong policies of former governments have given leeway to Microsoft and other companies known for their monopolistic practices to penetrate ministries and to become the sole infrastructure providers for strategic national projects such as the e-government services project. This has created a condition of dependency from the government on these companies, whereby the latter always has to renew expensive license contracts to guarantee the continuation of services.
Former governments have also allowed these companies to interfere in Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) curricula in schools and universities, tricked by the offering of cheap products to students, which led to a training process on ICTs exclusively based on the use of these products. This has consequently led to generations that only know the products of these companies as the synonym of ICTs, since they haven't witnessed the available free alternatives that are of no less quality. This is the reason why the current government has found itself in an impasse with the lapsing of the contract with Microsoft, through which software licenses were leased. It became impossible for the government to continue using software in more than 200,000 computers in a legal fashion without buying their licenses.
Following an evaluation, the current government found that it is a better solution to buy previously leased licenses, arguing that these are the best available options and the least costly. This was explained by former Minister of Communication and Information Technology Hani Mahmoud in a meeting with the representatives of the FOSS community on 30 December, following an action organized by the group in front of the cabinet building to protest the governmental decision to pay LE270 million for these licenses. The FOSS community sees that besides the fact that this sum is paid for inappropriate choices, it represents a waste of public money and a loss of opportunity for the encouragement of an Egyptian industry. Hoda Baraka, deputy minister of communication and head of the advisory committee designing the FOSS strategy, attended the meeting, as well as Haytham Nabil, committee member and head of the software unit in the Ministry of Administrative Development and Dina Hamed, the committee rapporteur.
According to the minister, the initial contract with Microsoft from 2009 to 2012 was for the leasing of software licenses and not buying them, with the possibility of paying an up to 18-months lease toward the end of the contract in order to purchase the licenses. Accordingly, the government paid almost US$90 million to lease software licenses in the last three years.
Microsoft and other companies with proprietary practices look primarily into consolidating gains acquired in on-going deals; this is why it is intervening now to reduce the value and present other incentives to guarantee the continuation of its deal with the Egyptian government.
FOSS activists aim to expose what Microsoft and other companies with proprietary practices have been doing for long at a time when alternative open software has not been studied as a viable alternative which does not require payment for use and which translates government expenditure into investments in human resources and local industrial development.
The activists see that supporting creativity and development as opposed to being limited to buying products from foreign companies leads to the improvement of Egypt's position in the production of knowledge. This is a preferred position to that of being solely a guardian of the intellectual property rights of foreign companies, as per some unfair deals that lead to brain drain and perpetuate an inconvenient ecosystem for local creativity.
The group also sees that the government is paying the same price that it has previously paid for the use of this software, which is by now replaceable by new technologically advanced products. However, the acquired licenses have only a limited upgrade from the products of the same company, while the right to improve them or configure them to the needs of the government that bought their licenses have been halted.
The ministry has to disclose the financial and technical details of the contracts signed with Microsoft and other companies providing software and proprietary operation systems, at least as of 2009, in order to re-evaluate them from technical and economic perspectives.
The government has also to disclose the report and recommendations regarding the evaluation of alternatives to the December 2012 decision to buy Microsoft licenses.
The collective will take legal measures to stop this contract until the possibility of lowering the need for this large number of licenses is reassessed, as well the replacement of some or all of them with FOSS that doesn’t require payment for licenses.
With regards to the government's policy on free and open source software:
The collective demands from the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology to implement previously announced policies with regards to government ICTs projects.
The ministry should commit to a preferential treatment to FOSS applications, which should represent no less than 50 percent of government projects.
The ministry should announce and commit to its promise of a time plan for the training of all necessary staff and cadres within the government in order to pursue a gradual move toward the use of FOSS and to replace proprietary software in different governmental sectors.
The ministry should put a time plan for a comprehensive move to FOSS in government projects given the strategic technical and economic privileges of such a move.
The ministry, based on its previously articulated interest, should immediately apply FOSS desktop applications, so that it wouldn't have to rebuild server applications. The ministry has to start with itself as a model from which the experience is passed on to the rest of state institutions, like it was the pioneering body in the field of e-government before.
The government should manage its ICTs practices transparently in order to open the field to Egyptian companies and civil society concerned with FOSS to play a principal role in the training and planning processes essential to move to the use of FOSS. This support would lead to a radical development in the software development sector and provide solutions based on creativity and development as opposed to being limited to buying ready-made products from foreign companies.
Educational curricula at all levels should be redesigned so that students learn the basics and principles of ICTs through practicing on FOSS which they can acquire for free and without having to violate the intellectual property of companies providing proprietary software.
The active collective includes developers and experts in the software industry, owners of Egyptian companies, independent groups, civil society, students and amateurs, all demanding the immediate implementation of these procedures, so we don't find ourselves in the same impasse after a while, having to buy new licenses and waste more money and opportunities for growth.
The FOSS community in Egypt is flourishing, with technical skills, expertise and desire for development and societal growth by and large, and not only sector growth. This is manifested in the diverse activities undertaken by this community, which include developing systems and solutions for commercial purposes, engaging with the international FOSS community, organizing awareness activities at home, enriching the existing technical content in Arabic and training and developing open curricula collaboratively.