LocalFOSS

In a sign that the battle for the hearts and minds of both government and business clients is hotting up in Malaysia, the Malaysia Open Source Software Alliance has released and Open Statement on "Software Nuetrality and Openness".

The statement is published below:

MOSSA
(Malaysia Open Source Software Alliance)
Position Statement on Software Neutrality and Openness
7 December 2006

Background

On 21 November 2006, Y.B. Dato' Sri Jamaludin Jarjis, Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation announced that the Malaysian Government is adopting a neutral technology platform policy that does not favour either open source software (OSS) or proprietary software, and that government procurement policies will now be based on merit and not on platform choice. The Minister was also quoted that this does not void MAMPU's Open Source Software Master Plan.

Purpose of Position Statement

Malaysia Open Source Software Alliance (MOSSA) consists of ICT solution developers and providers, associations, groups, users and individuals as listed below. We would like to state our support for the announced policy and our views on how the policy should be practiced.

Position Statement

1. We have always regarded the Malaysian Public Sector OSS Initiative with its Master Plan as one of the best in the world, and it has a balanced approach to software deployment with no preference given to either open source or proprietary software. We believe this remains the case today and we are pleased that the Malaysian Government is reaffirming this policy.

2. We support a procurement structure based on neutrality, and we would like to see a draft on what 'neutrality' means. Key concerns are:

• Software neutrality should result in a competitive playing field which benefits the consumers in terms of quality of service received and long term gains.
• Software neutrality should include triggers that look beyond the short-term goals and mitigate risks of market manipulation by companies or organizations who might offer more in return for market monopoly, imposing restrictive strategies and retarding the growth of the local IT industry in the long run.
• Software neutrality should result in openly developed, openly maintained, openly accessible and royalty and patent free standards to mitigate these risks, which favour both the market and industry, beside truly giving meaning to neutrality.
• Software neutrality includes understanding that considerations when acquiring software are independent of whether the software comes from a proprietary or open source provider. Procurement decisions should be based on solid business rationale which must consider functionality, cost effectiveness, interoperability through open standards, security, flexibility and performance. Additional considerations would include the effect on local economies, the adoption of open file formats, and adaptability to future technologies.

3. We are working on a Customer Charter that represents our commitment to the industry and market, incorporating the following:

• Innovation means making the customer receive exactly what he wants.
• Empowerment means allowing the customer to move forward as he chooses after the service is delivered.
• Fair play means allowing the customer to choose the software he wants and still run the solutions he paid for.
• Neutrality means not restricting the customer to our business model when he does not like it.
• Democracy is giving the customer a choice.

A full list of the signee companies and organisations can be found here.