[PLUG] Linux in Govt in Mexico (from LInuxworld / Wired)

[Rupert Heesom <raheesom@navpoint.com>]

Page -
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,42456,00.html

Mexico City's municipal government announced plans to switch city
computers to the Linux operating system and to use the money it saves to
fund social welfare programs.

In an interview with the Mexican daily Reforma, the city's technical
coordinator, José Barberán estimated that the municipality would save
millions of dollars "that are spent, in my opinion, unnecessarily on
software."

Barberán said it would take about two years to make the transition from
commercial to open-source software, which is already being used in the
city's motor vehicle licensing agency.

The transition will be done slowly to make sure the government's
day-to-day business isn't interrupted while employees are trained in
Linux, said Pedro Valencia Garcia, an aide to Barberán.

"We agree with the philosophy of free software," said Valencia Garcia.
"We'll use the money we save in the city's social programs. The slogan
of our mayor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, is 'for the good of all, the
poor must come first.'"

López Obrador promised a thrifty government when he took office in
December, vowing not to waste public monies on the bloated salaries, new
cars and other such perks that traditionally have been handed to
high-ranking officials in Mexico. He pledged to clean up the crime and
poverty-choked capital, home to 18 million people.

The progressive mayor has appointed women to nine of the 15 positions in
his cabinet and has promised to provide free health care for the poor.

Cutting costs by moving to open-source software was a logical choice for
the mayor, Valencia Garcia said.

Experts have long predicted that the future of technology in Latin
America would depend on free software as well as hardware donations.

The standard MS Office price tag is $250. It would take the average
Mexican -- earning $5 a day -- almost two months to buy it.

"Mexico's in the driver's seat in this area," said Gary Chapman,
director of the 21st Century Project, a nonprofit research and education
program on science and technology policy based at the University of
Texas at Austin.

A program to install the free Linux operating system in public schools,
for example, has reportedly saved the government $3 million in Microsoft
licenses, he said.

And Mexico claims its own free-software guru: Miguel de Icaza, creator
of Gnome.

Open-source software could help many developing countries avoid becoming
what Chapman calls "Microsoft client states," by allowing them to
develop their own applications.

"Not only will they save money, they could build an alternative software
development market and model so they're not just sending their money to
the United States all the time," Chapman said.

Others hoped that the open-source movement would spread through all
levels of government in Mexico.

"If this is true, it could establish a norm for the federal government
to follow," said Raúl Trejo Delarbre, a political analyst who publishes
a newsmagazine called etcétera. "It's a daring move that will be
difficult to put in practice because everyone uses Windows."

But Linux has come a long way since it was released 10 years ago, said
Peter Wayner, the author of Free for All, a book about open-source
software. It's true that most people don't know how to use it, but the
system is relatively uncomplicated to learn, he said.

"It's no more complicated than MS Windows," said Wayner. "Linux is
designed to be as open and flexible as possible."



-- 
regs
rupert


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