So I bought this InfoLinux Magazine (yeah it's geek stuffs, goodie). 02/2007 edition. An article said that Indonesian Government signs an MOU with Microsoft, that said Indonesian government would buy 35.496 license of Microsoft Windows and 177.480 license of Microsoft Office. A single license of Microsoft Windows is about US $275 and office is about US $179 *brings a calculator*. Simple math :
275x35946=9885150
179x177480=31768920
9885150+31768920=41654070
So the Indonesia have national debt to Microsoft about US$ 41.654.070. Let's just say US$1=Rp.9.000,-. Do the math, baby! That's about 374.886.630.000 rupiahs.
In short, Microsoft 0wn3d Indonesia already. Well done to the lazy lame a**es up there who wouldn't even willing to learn something new! How many people can be fed with that amount of money? Indonesia's rate of poverty are such high. Yet that amount of money is used to facilitate lazy people, where there're far cheaper and familiar solutions already available out there. What kind of softwares do the government workers use? How complex? Office suite are the main softwares (duh? the number of license for MS Office the Government plan to buy). There's already OpenOffice out there. Or if that isn't enough, there're tons of commercial but cheaper solution than Microsoft's. What's the excuse? Standard? There's nothing standard about proprietary formats. OOo can open MS Office documents almost flawlessly, and I've been using it since years ago. So standard isn't an acceptable excuse.
How people think about free stuffs, how free stuffs aren't as good as the expensive ones. The prestige image when buying expensive stuffs. I say this is one of the main cause. In the software world, legal softwares here are very expensive and only few people can afford it. Thus, the solution : steal. More thief, more cheaper but full featured commercial softwares for everyone. Why would I want to use free stuff when I can get expensive one with very low price? That's what I think most people think.
This magazine I read is all about Free Software movement, with Linux (the main, most popular product of FSF) as its main topic. Linux is a full featured operating system that I say would enough for everyday needs, if you're a non gamer or non multimedia hardcore and only uses computer for office stuffs (emails, spreadsheet, browsing, word processor, etc). For the other two cathegories, if you willing to find out and learn harder (with some sacrifices), you can use linux aswell.
There's this so called IGOS movement by the goverment, but what they really do is only releasing a distro for internet cafes based on knoppix, and it's a mess IMHO, and they don't target the main problem with piracy in Indonesia. Since then, I never read or heard anything anymore about this IGOS movement. No surprise for me.
The Indonesia Linux communities also dissapointed for couple of times with the goverment refusing to deal with them and considering their solution. One of the project is KPU (hacked and 0wn3d by Dani Firmansyah). But I don't think goverment offices migrates to Linux just like alot of internet cafes everywhere in Jakarta.
Why is it come to such mess? One day I suggested a person, why not use wordpad instead of the full featured microsoft office if you just writing a letter (that person installed everything right from word, excel, powerpoint and frontpage just to get to type the letter)? Guess what's the answer? "I can't it's different". ROFL. The most priceless excuse I've ever heard. Familiarity is the most excuse people refusing this peculiar breed of software. So yeah I've been curious about this new digital penguin species for about years now, and keep anxious of learning it.
Well, that's very up to each of us. I'm prepared. I got the almighty penguin on my side :). Do you?
