Opinion: 'Technology neutrality' and what it means to us Malaysians - New Straits Times

Yoon Kit's article, 'Technology neutrality' and what it means to us Malaysians got published in the New Straits Times Online  today.

Yoon Kit wrote the article afer the MOSSA Round Table on Software Neutrality and Openness on 7 December 2006. The online article is found here and also transcribed further below.

Excerpts:

"We do need to clarify the terms "neutral technology platform policy" or "Technology Neutrality". "Neutral" seems to suggest a passive attitude towards adopting the best solution. We do not believe that this is the true meaning of the direction. A "Neutral" position should mean that all procurement decisions should be based on a level and competitive playing field, with regards to triggers to mitigate risks of market manipulation through monopolies, results which are openly accessible standards with no encumbrances to patents and royalty, and the merits based on solid business rationale on functionality, cost effectiveness, interoperability, security, flexibility and performance.

This is true "Technology Neutrality" as it encourages competition, innovation, better service and a healthy local ICT ecosystem."

"So what "Technology Neutrality" means to Malaysians is more competition and more choice. Our current ICT ecosystem is severely lacking of choice, and hopefully the recent announcement by the Minister would mean a more pro-active effort in enforcing "Neutrality" in terms of policies, government spending and education. OSS will always be on the forefront in terms of features, interoperability, customisability and of course value."

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New Straits Times  >>  Columns

Opinion: 'Technology neutrality' and what it means to us Malaysians

18 Dec 2006
Yong Yoon Kit

The recent announcement by the Malaysian Science, Technology and Innovations (MOSTI) Minister, Datuk Seri Dr Jamaludin Jarjis brought upon the formation of an alliance of vendors, organisations and end users to define a position statement. The Malaysian Open Source Software Alliance (MOSSA) has shown how much Open Source Software (OSS) has matured in the local ICT market where competing vendors and ISVs (independent software vendors) have come together with end-users to state their support for the definition of "neutrality" and what it means to Malaysia.

In the time window between the Minister's announcement and MOSSA's statement, there was significant fear, uncertainty and doubt bandied by the unlikely supporters of neutrality. The fear was that this was a new directive from above, the uncertainty was whether if affected certain governments procurement policies and the doubt was whether to go forward with future OSS projects.

Actually, the announcement was just the clarification of the single sentence of "preference" to OSS solutions in the hypothetical (and rare) situation where all the advantages and disadvantages of proprietary and FOSS were equal. The Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit's (MAMPU) OSS Masterplan however is still supported by the government, which promotes the use of OSS and will continue to be used to increase efficiencies, competition, competencies and better solutions within the Government.

We do need to clarify the terms "neutral technology platform policy" or "Technology Neutrality". "Neutral" seems to suggest a passive attitude towards adopting the best solution. We do not believe that this is the true meaning of the direction. A "Neutral" position should mean that all procurement decisions should be based on a level and competitive playing field, with regards to triggers to mitigate risks of market manipulation through monopolies, results which are openly accessible standards with no encumbrances to patents and royalty, and the merits based on solid business rationale on functionality, cost effectiveness, interoperability, security, flexibility and performance.

This is true "Technology Neutrality" as it encourages competition, innovation, better service and a healthy local ICT ecosystem.

Putting this in a Malaysian context today; currently if Malaysians were to purchase a system from HP, Lenovo or Dell, we would be hard pressed to find an option to exclude a copy of Microsoft Windows XP Home or Pro, especially if we had legitimate reasons to do so. For example, if we were required to install FreeDOS, Ubuntu Linux, NetBSD or even openSolaris. This is not a neutral procurement decision. We are being forced into purchasing a software license which we have no need for.

The Business Software Alliance (BSA) would like us to think that the reason why Microsoft operating systems are bundled into the cost of new machines is to reduce the high piracy rates in Malaysia. However, if hardware manufacturers installed open source operating systems like Ubuntu Linux instead, they still would be honouring the Copyright Act and laws of Malaysia, with the added bonus of saving Malaysians money on an operating system which would provide the same features of office productivity, emails and web browsing. We need this choice to include or exclude this artificial requirement to promote neutrality on other operating systems.

Similarly "Technology Neutrality" would also mean the global trend in adopting Open standards in the ICT Solutions we procure. Gone are the days where customers were forced to "lock" into closed and proprietary standards which were expensive to maintain and migrate from. Open standards have now matured to cater for all aspects of technology which guarantees pure competition, interoperability and far more efficient use of Malaysia's money.

The most recent example would be the OpenDocument Format (ODF) which has been developed over 5 years through the rigorous International Standards process of over 2 years and now ratified as ISO/IEC 26300:2006. This document format covers word processors, spreadsheets and presentation documents. It is something which the market has been waiting for for over 20 years since the advent of word processors, where the market was forced into the seemingly never ending cycle of upgrades, incompatibilities, inaccessibilities and frustration.

Now we finally have a solution which is completely "neutral" to its core. It is developed by many stakeholders from across the board: vendors (Sun, Novell, IBM, developers (OpenOffice.org, KOffice, Gnumetric), and end users (Boeing, Royal National Institute for the Blind, OpenDocument Foundation). It is royalty-free and has no patent encumbrances. It is completely open in specifications and is proud of its openly developed process. Its recognition is exemplified in the rapidly growing membership list of the ODF Alliance (http://www.odfalliance.org) of over 360+ worldwide organisations, companies, departments and NGOs who find great value in this open standard for today and for the future.

Any vendor is welcomed to implement this as a file format, as it is an open standard, and this removes all the artificial monopolies and encourages competition and choice. It encourages communication between people without the requirements of a certain product from a certain vendor on a certain OS running a certain version. It is everything a "Technologically Neutral" platform should be, as specified by MOSTI.

And yet Governments of the world are facing significant politicking and disruptions by the only vendor which has the virtual monopoly status of office productivity software. And this, via a bizarre twisting of the use of words, is the same vendor who is lobbying for "choice and neutrality."

Other things which should be "Technology Neutral" are government services to her citizens of Malaysia. Currently to file Income Tax submissions online via LHDN's e-HASIL e-Filing system, it is required to have "Internet Explorer 5.0 or above and Windows 2000 or XP with the latest service packs" How about the Apple Users, let alone the FOSS users? What happens in 2007? Would we be required to upgrade to Vista? This is definitely not promoting "Technology neutrality." (https://e.hasil.org.my/)

The irony of this situation is that "e-Filing" is a web application, and web-apps should be the best examples of "technology neutrality," wherein any user of any browser on any operating system should be able to post their income tax details from any location. The W3C HTTP specifications defines the "Internet" as we know it, and is a great example of "Neutrality" where these open standards can be implemented using proprietary, open source, freeware, adware methodologies, and all other means of applications from servers, routers to browsers.

Open Standards drives this Neutrality, and in turn, this Neutrality drives healthy competition. So, because of this, we have today an efficient model of how technology neutrality should be chosen, as envisioned by the MOSTI Minister.

So what "Technology Neutrality" means to Malaysians is more competition and more choice. Our current ICT ecosystem is severely lacking of choice, and hopefully the recent announcement by the Minister would mean a more pro-active effort in enforcing "Neutrality" in terms of policies, government spending and education. OSS will always be on the forefront in terms of features, interoperability, customisability and of course value.

If you agree in the true meaning of the phrase "Technology Neutrality" as described and elaborated in this article, please endorse your support to MOSSA's position statement as described in detail here at: http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2006/12/position_statem.html

Yong Yoon Kit is a member of the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) ICT & Multimedia Comitteee and the Free and Open Source Software Special Interest Group (FMM FOSS SIG). As a user and purchaser of software he finds OSS to be Malaysia's means of closing the digital divide and reducing wasteful expenditure on IT products. He has a day job as an IT Manager.

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