Why use Free Open Source Software in Politics?
February 14th, 2009 | by Sean |It’s a good question. Ask just about anybody, and they’ll tell you that what they know about computers is all based on the world’s favourite typewriter-emulator software. Why should they change to something else? Software isn’t cheap. Its price is often hidden in the price of a new PC that comes bundled with the software. Check the price of the best-known desktop operating system and typewriter emulation software. See? Hundreds, if not over a thousand Ringgit Malaysia.
“No need to buy!” I often hear in Malaysia. And it’s kind of true, like not needing to wear a seatbelt while driving, or not paying tax, or taking the office stationery home with you. There’s no need, until you get caught. If budget is no issue to your political party, then neither is the “Free” part of FOSS. For political parties running on a minimal budget, the price of several hundred licences for operating systems, office software and assorted proprietary packages can add up to a tidy sum. Worse than that, if your opponents were to call an anti software piracy visit on you, the penalty could make it difficult for you to continue operating.
‘Equality before the Law’ is not about forcing everyone to be the same. For new / minimally-funded political groups, the costs of efficiently organising the group can be a barrier to entry into political life. These days, organising is almost always done online, through websites and email, with campaign material designed on and printed from personal computers. The cost of buying proprietary software and risks inherent in using it unlicensed shouldn’t be a barrier – and they’re not, thanks to FOSS.
In the office I work in, all the PCs have Xubuntu installed, an Ubuntu variant. Xubuntu is not just an operating system, but also a collection of all the best FOSS available. If you use a PC equipped with Ubuntu, there’s no need to drive into town to buy a word-processing, spreadsheet, accountancy or image editing package, you can just click on what you want on your desktop, and it will automatically install from the Internet and be ready to use. It can be difficult to find branded PCs without proprietary software pre-installed, but most PC brands will ship (on request) price-reduced PCs ‘blank’ for you to install FOSS on yourself. Some brands even supply PCs with FOSS pre-installed, but they do charge for this.
It gets even better if you want to write your own software, or run servers for collaboration, blogging, forums, mail, chatting or games. To buy proprietary software for these tasks can cost enormous amounts of money. With systems like Ubuntu, it’s all available at the click of a mouse button, and all absolutely free, both in up-front costs and from risk of licence infringment. Old PCs can often be revitalised with FOSS, as many projects are aimed directly at older equipment – we typically use Slackware for this purpose – as well as for our production servers. A PC that might be too old to run recent proprietary hardware can often work perfectly well with a FOSS alternative.
Once your political organisation gets into power, FOSS can really pay dividends. The ‘Open Source’ feature is a guarantee that diverse systems can be easily integrated – there’s no ‘vendor lock-in’ to proprietary data formats. If you wish to bring the systems that served your party well on your route to power into government service, then you have no gigantic licence bill to face: you can continue investing in people instead.
If you’re in a political organisation and you’re not using FOSS, I would like to ask you: Why not?