Throughout Europe, governments demonstrate support for Open Source. What's more, in many countries in and out of the EU, proposals have surfaced in support of Open Source. The list is formidable and includes Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom. The Spanish regional government of Andalucia has gone so far as to decree that state-run universities and libraries  use "free" software.

Half-way around the world, the Japanese government has joined with China and South Korea to collaborate on the development of Open Source software alternatives to Microsoft. Japan has allocated ¥1 billion to the project. Tux's globetrotting doesn't stop there, as desktop users in Brazil are learning a new kind of Samba. A number of Brazilian state governments have all ready passed legislation permitting state agencies to procure Open Source software. Taking that one step further, the state of Espirito Santo requires that Open Source software be favored unless it makes systems incompatible.

Now the national government of Brazil has stepped in, as the newly elected President of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, is finalizing a policy announcement that will recommend that federal ministries, agencies and state enterprises install Open Source software such as Linux instead of proprietary software, such as Microsoft's  Windows, in new computer equipment. While the impending recommendation will favor Open Source software, it will not, however, require the use of Open Source software. According to President da Silva's advisor on information technology, nonetheless, upwards of 80% of government computers that will bought next year may run on Open Source software. 

Excitement for Open Source is equally present in Africa, and that exuberance spilled over into the seventh annual Highway Africa information summit held at Rhodes University, in Grahamstown, South Africa. Attending the summit were delegates from private industry, the media, and academia. Africa is beginning to overcome infrastructure problems to exploit the Internet to aid development, alleviate poverty, and further democratization. Non-governmental organizations reported that they are able to raise funds more easily ease via e-mail while illustrating their work on web sites. More importantly, community Internet centers, where villagers can get  accurate weather forecasts, crop-planting information, and agricultural-marketing trends, are now bringing the poor of Africa on-line.

Along these lines of reasoning, the Government Information Technology Officers Council of South Africa has formulated a policy to favor Open Source software. The Council calls upon the South African government, the largest single buyer of computer technology in South Africa, to take advantage of "the opportunities presented by the OSS movement to promote access to information for citizens." According to the policy: "OSS (Open Source software) offers significant indirect advantages. Where the direct advantages and disadvantages of OSS and PS (proprietary software) are equally strong, and where circumstances in the specific situation do not render it inappropriate, opting for OSS will be preferable."

The worldwide drumbeat for Open Source in government reaches a crescendo in December, with the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), which will be hosted by the UN's International Telecommunications Union in Geneva. Just as the World Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD) was a lightning rod for the economic and ecological differences surrounding the issues of just what "sustainable development" means, WSIS will be a battleground over just what is meant by an "Information Society."

A key issue at the WSIS will center on the potential of information and communications technologies (ICTs) to transform the Third World. The dominant notion is that giving people access to Internet and information will by definition  empower them. For those who subscribe to this dominant notion, the focus of WSIS must then be on the benefits of enrolling and incorporating marginalized people into the "Information Society" and thereby deliver them from Cyberia.

Given that mindset combined with the intention to go beyond simply defining a vision of the "Information Society" toward a plan that binds signatories to a uniform global information policy to realize it, you can expect a lot of fireworks to come out of this meeting. Conference topics include the typical hot topics, including intellectual property rights and copyright. The World Intellectual Property Organization plans to hold a meeting on the subject next year. Meanwhile, Open Source software has been added to the agenda of multilateral government bodies. Reinforcing this interest, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has been developing guidelines that encourage the use of Open Source technology.

In particular, the OECD has identified an important correlation factor that helps to better explain both growth and the disparities across countries is the investment in ICTs.  The data for this relationship can be found in the OECD's recent paper Investment in Knowledge. To get a rough indication of a nation’s investment in knowledge, the OECD focuses on public and private spending on higher education, investment in software, and expenditure on R&D. Using this formula, Sweden, the United States, Korea, and Finland are the four most knowledge-based economies, as their investment in knowledge amounts to 5.2-6.5% of GDP. What’s more, the ratio of investment in knowledge to GDP in Sweden, Finland, and the United States is more than two-thirds of the ratio of investment in machinery and equipment to GDP.

The conclusion is clear. Software investment costs are typically the second largest component in the OECD’s investment in knowledge metrics. For developing countries, Open Source is the only way to keep abreast with the United States and the Nordic countries. Failure to keep up could accelerate divergence rather than convergence in the world’s economies. More importantly, the recognition that the local application of ICT goods along with the development of new local skills and training will improve local productivity growth just as much as producing those goods should be a familiar argument for Open readers.

Edgar Villnueva Nuñez used this argument in defending a Bill in the Peruvian Congress to make Free Software the standard in government offices. Such government policies favoring or mandating the use of Open Source software have become a critical competitive fire for Microsoft to put out. In a rebuttal to a challenge from Microsoft's General Manager in Peru, Dr. Villnueva wrote "With free software one creates more technically qualified employment and a framework of free competence where success is only tied to the ability to offer good technical support and quality of service, one stimulates the market, and one increases the shared fund of knowledge, opening up alternatives to generate services of greater total value and a higher quality level, to the benefit of all involved: producers, service organizations, and consumers."

Alex Mercer, a Microsoft spokesperson, pronounced a different viewpoint: "All customers, including government customers, should make decisions about which type of software to implement based upon a careful analysis of the long-term value that the software provides. We agree with this view and...encourage governments to keep their software options open by adhering to policies that do not favor one software development model over another."

What's more, Microsoft is not without allies in the US Commerce Department. Bruce Mehlman, the Commerce Department's assistant secretary for tech policy, has stated that, "We are concerned by foreign governments setting preferences or mandates in procurement or research. Our view on Open Source is that the US and foreign governments need to be technology-neutral in procurement and R&D investments." Words like "concern" do not, however, reflect the extent to which the US government has opposed mandated preferences in other nations.

At the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Thailand, the United States pushed for governments to promote technology "choice," which was understood to include the choice of either proprietary software or Open Source software. At planning meetings for the WSIS, the United States has been working to trim language in the draft declaration that advocates and proposes Open Source software for developing nations.  Nonetheless,  language for Open Source advocacy in the Draft Plan of Action remains quite strong:

Development and deployment of open-source software, multi-platform and open platforms, should be encouraged to provide freedom of choice and to facilitate access to ICTs by all citizens, at an affordable cost:

   Actions

Create awareness of open-source/free software, especially in the developing countries.
A "Programmers Without Frontiers" initiative, focused on open-source/free software as applied to development needs, should be launched and coordinated, under the auspices of the UN.
Intensify standardization efforts in the field of terminology and other language resources.
Promote a collaborative network of open-source/free software technology tools for civil society.
Create intellectual property mechanisms that protect and encourage the use of open source technologies and development processes. In addition, it would provide mechanisms that ensure that public interests are taken into account when community informatics processes involve the private sector.
Finance the development of open source technologies and open software that will facilitate women's access.
Governments should encourage research on the advantages and disadvantages of open source software, in particular on its use by government agencies. Results of this research should be made available by 2005.
 

If subtle diplomatic efforts prove ineffective, Microsoft still has a "nuclear option." The Association for Competitive Technology (ACT), which includes Microsoft, is not at all shy about directly communicating its concerns when preferential legislation or regulations are attempted. In addition, the Computer and Telecommunications Industry Association (CompTIA), which also includes Microsoft, has formed the Initiative for Software Choice (ISC), which monitors Open Source legislation. This charter could be taken one step further, according to Robert Kramer, vice president for public policy at CompTIA. With no Open Source law to site as a good model, the ISC might draft one of their own.

Nonetheless, a far more chilling pronouncement comes from Jonathan Zuck, president of ACT. He openly questions whether Open Source preference legislation might violate World Trade Organization laws.