Open source advocates Manny Amador, Dr. Alvin Marcelo and PLUG Vice President Jerome Gotangco in a discussion outside the UP College of Engineering auditorium. The blurred fourth person in the photo is not the Flash, but Dominique Cimafranca, who still owes me an Ubuntu T-shirt.
MOST of us who found our way to Software Freedom Day at the UP College of Engineering last Saturday had to take a circuitous route to get there. The main entrance to Melchor Hall was closed, so we had to circumnavigate the building before stumbling upon a gate in the back—unencumbered by any directional signs. Going through, we followed others who looked less lost into a quadrangle, into a side door, up some stairs and finally, into the third floor auditorium.
Even on a hot, muggy morning, it was a trek worth making.
I got there in time to hear some welcome remarks from Jerome Gotangco, vice president of the Philippine Linux Users Group (PLUG), one of the event organizers. Other organizers were the University of the Philippines Linux Users’ Group (UnPLUG), the UP College of Engineering Department of Computer Science; the UP Computer Center; the Association for Computing Machinery – UP Student Chapter; and the Bluepoint Institute of Technology. I was surprised to learn that PLUG has been celebrating Software Freedom Day since 1998.
The next speaker was Dr. Alvin Marcelo, an associate professor from UP Manila, whose day job is to manage the Philippine node of International Open Source Network ASEAN+3, as part of UN efforts to promote free and open source software (FOSS) in the region. Marcelo’s night job, I later learned, is trauma surgeon at the Philippine General Hospital.
An old hand at Linux, Marcelo urged the younger crowd to take two or three newcomers under their wings, recalling how a more experienced user, Eric Pareja, had helped him when he was a newbie.
“You need a mentor. If I hadn’t met Eric then, I wouldn’t be using Linux today,” Marcelo said, adding that more than copying software, FOSS is about sharing and helping others.
Marcelo also related how a recent visit to an Internet café—one with three Windows PCs and three Linux boxes—illustrated the inroads that FOSS has made and the obstacles that remain.
“Everytime someone took a seat at a Linux PC, the technician would warn them: ‘Linux yan! (That’s Linux!)’ The technician seemed to be warning people: ‘That’s a Linux machine. Proceed at your own risk.’ But some people would sit down anyway and run a browser. No problem. My son, who uses Damn Small Linux at home, also sat at a Linux PC, but the technician seemed eager to move him to a Windows machine. But I told him, ‘No, this is where we want to be.’
“Ten years ago, you wouldn’t find Linux in a cybercafe, but this story also shows that a lot more needs to be done. We need to tell the technician, ‘Linux is what we want.’ We need to engage these technicians, because there are subtle signals in their warnings.”
Subtlety was not the strong suit of the next speaker, Manny Amador of InfoWeapons in Cebu.
“Your software freedoms are always under attack,” he told the crowd. “We who enjoy these freedoms must speak out every time they are endangered. Be militant, be aggressive.”
In particular, Amador warned against attempts to introduce software patents that, unlike copyrights, would reserve rights to not only a particular program but the idea itself.
“There’s nothing more disastrous than software patents. Only idiots want software patents. That’s why they’re in the United States. For once, we’re ahead. We have a world-class intellectual property regime. They don’t. So if the US Commerce Department says they want to help us set up a world-class IP regime, you can tell them to kiss my ass. We already have one.”
Amador also urged everyone to support Rep. Teddy Casiño’s FOSS bill, including a controversial provision requiring government agencies to use free and open source software.
“Some people feel it’s extreme and say we should merely recommend FOSS. I disagree. They’ll water this bill down, so let’s reach farther so we’ll get a decent compromise bill.”
“The price of software freedom is eternal vigilance,” Amador concluded. “When they kick you, you kick back harder. Don’t be afraid to be abrasive. They’re a bunch of greedy bastards anyway. Protect your freedom in a militant manner. If you don’t you’ll lose it piece by piece.”
Also at hand, Danny Escasa spoke of a program called Positive that helps universities and colleges incorporate FOSS in their curricula, and Engels Antonio talked about BluePoint Foundation’s work with rural public high schools. Al Alegre announced the formation of BUKAS, an open source alliance of civil society and other groups.
The high point of the morning, however, was a talk by Dr. Francisco Nemenzo, former UP president. More than anybody else, Nemenzo had pushed open source forward when, as UP president years ago, he declared that the entire university system would junk proprietary systems in favor of Linux. Many schools eventually followed his lead.
“Moving UP to open source was one of the most popular decisions I ever made, but that wasn’t my intention,” Nemenzo said, noting that he even received congratulatory e-mail from FOSS advocates in other countries. “There was no philosophical or ideological motivation at all. It was a pragmatic decision.”
At the time, he said, Microsoft and agents from the National Bureau of Investigation had tried to raid UP Davao, but didn’t have a search warrant. This gave officials in Davao time to remove any pirated software on their computers.
“When this was reported to me, I said we must legalize this so I asked for an estimate,” Nemenzo said. “I was shocked at how much we would have to pay [for licensed software] because it would eat up so much of our budget.”
From then on, UP went open source, and any colleges that used proprietary software would have to pay for it from their own budgets, he said.
Addressing open source developers, Nemenzo added: “I’m not a computer man, just a user, but I truly appreciate your work. When we talk about developing IT, it’s not just about call centers… Filipinos will not only be a nation of users but a nation of creators who create new products. With open source you can do this much better.”
Taking his leave, Nemenzo also apologized for being late. He, too, had taken the long way to Software Freedom Day.
