[wordup] Peruvian Congressman vs. Microsoft FUD

[Adam Shand]

It's interesting that much of the momentum of Open Source / Free
Software is moving away from the USA to smaller and 3rd world countries
(and China).

The repeated acts of foreign governments to endorse Free Software seems
to lend credence in my mind to the last post from New Zealand.

Interesting stuff.

Adam.

From: http://www.pimientolinux.com/peru2ms/villanueva_to_ms.html
Via: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/05/06/1739244
More: http://www.pimientolinux.com/peru2ms/

Lima, 8th of April, 2002
To: Señor JUAN ALBERTO GONZÁLEZ
General Manager of Microsoft Perú

Dear Sir:

First of all, I thank you for your letter of March 25, 2002 in which you
state the official position of Microsoft relative to Bill Number 1609,
Free Software in Public Administration, which is indubitably inspired by
the desire for Peru to find a suitable place in the global technological
context. In the same spirit, and convinced that we will find the best
solutions through an exchange of clear and open ideas, I will take this
opportunity to reply to the commentaries included in your letter.

While acknowledging that opinions such as yours constitute a significant
contribution, it would have been even more worthwhile for me if, rather
than formulating objections of a general nature (which we will analyze
in detail later) you had gathered solid arguments for the advantages
that proprietary software could bring to the Peruvian State, and to its
citizens in general, since this would have allowed a more enlightening
exchange in respect of each of our positions.

With the aim of creating an orderly debate, we will assume that what you
call "open source software" is what the Bill defines as "free software",
since there exists software for which the source code is distributed
together with the program, but which does not fall within the definition
established by the Bill; and that what you call "commercial software" is
what the Bill defines as "proprietary" or "unfree", given that there
exists free software which is sold in the market for a price like any
other good or service.

It is also necessary to make it clear that the aim of the Bill we are
discussing is not directly related to the amount of direct savings that
can by made by using free software in state institutions. That is in any
case a marginal aggregate value, but in no way is it the chief focus of
the Bill. The basic principles which inspire the Bill are linked to the
basic guarantees of a state of law, such as:

    * Free access to public information by the citizen.
    * Permanence of public data.
    * Security of the State and citizens.

To guarantee the free access of citizens to public information, it is
indispensable that the encoding of data is not tied to a single
provider. The use of standard and open formats gives a guarantee of this
free access, if necessary through the creation of compatible free
software.

To guarantee the permanence of public data, it is necessary that the
usability and maintenance of the software does not depend on the
goodwill of the suppliers, or on the monopoly conditions imposed by
them. For this reason the State needs systems the development of which
can be guaranteed due to the availability of the source code.

To guarantee national security or the security of the State, it is
indispensable to be able to rely on systems without elements which allow
control from a distance or the undesired transmission of information to
third parties. Systems with source code freely accessible to the public
are required to allow their inspection by the State itself, by the
citizens, and by a large number of independent experts throughout the
world. Our proposal brings further security, since the knowledge of the
source code will eliminate the growing number of programs with *spy
code*.

In the same way, our proposal strengthens the security of the citizens,
both in their role as legitimate owners of information managed by the
state, and in their role as consumers. In this second case, by allowing
the growth of a widespread availability of free software not containing
*spy code* able to put at risk privacy and individual freedoms.

In this sense, the Bill is limited to establishing the conditions under
which the state bodies will obtain software in the future, that is, in a
way compatible with these basic principles.

>From reading the Bill it will be clear that once passed:
# the law does not forbid the production of proprietary software
# the law does not forbid the sale of proprietary software
# the law does not specify which concrete software to use
# the law does not dictate the supplier from whom software will be
bought
# the law does not limit the terms under which a software product can be
licensed.

What the Bill does express clearly, is that, for software to be
acceptable for the state it is not enough that it is technically capable
of fulfilling a task, but that further the contractual conditions must
satisfy a series of requirements regarding the license, without which
the State cannot guarantee the citizen adequate processing of his data,
watching over its integrity, confidentiality, and accessibility
throughout time, as these are very critical aspects for its normal
functioning.

We agree, Mr. Gonzalez, that information and communication technology
have a significant impact on the quality of life of the citizens
(whether it be positive or negative). We surely also agree that the
basic values I have pointed out above are fundamental in a democratic
state like Peru. So we are very interested to know of any other way of
guaranteeing these principles, other than through the use of free
software in the terms defined by the Bill.

As for the observations you have made, we will now go on to analyze them
in detail:

Firstly, you point out that: "1. The bill makes it compulsory for all
public bodies to use only free software, that is to say open source
software, which breaches the principles of equality before the law, that
of non-discrimination and the right of free private enterprise, freedom
of industry and of contract, protected by the constitution."

This understanding is in error. The Bill in no way affects the rights
you list; it limits itself entirely to establishing conditions for the
use of software on the part of state institutions, without in any way
meddling in private sector transactions. It is a well established
principle that the State does not enjoy the wide spectrum of contractual
freedom of the private sector, as it is limited in its actions precisely
by the requirement for transparency of public acts; and in this sense,
the preservation of the greater common interest must prevail when
legislating on the matter.

The Bill protects equality under the law, since no natural or legal
person is excluded from the right of offering these goods to the State
under the conditions defined in the Bill and without more limitations
than those established by the Law of State Contracts and Purchasing
(T.U.O. by Supreme Decree No. 012-2001-PCM).

The Bill does not introduce any discrimination whatever, since it only
establishes *how* the goods have to be provided (which is a state power)
and not *who* has to provide them (which would effectively be
discriminatory, if restrictions based on national origin, race religion,
ideology, sexual preference etc. were imposed). On the contrary, the
Bill is decidedly antidiscriminatory. This is so because by defining
with no room for doubt the conditions for the provision of software, it
prevents state bodies from using software which has a license including
discriminatory conditions.

It should be obvious from the preceding two paragraphs that the Bill
does not harm free private enterprise, since the latter can always
choose under what conditions it will produce software; some of these
will be acceptable to the State, and others will not be since they
contradict the guarantee of the basic principles listed above. This free
initiative is of course compatible with the freedom of industry and
freedom of contract (in the limited form in which the State can exercise
the latter). Any private subject can produce software under the
conditions which the State requires, or can refrain from doing so.
Nobody is forced to adopt a model of production, but if they wish to
provide software to the State, they must provide the mechanisms which
guarantee the basic principles, and which are those described in the
Bill.

By way of an example: nothing in the text of the Bill would prevent your
company offering the State bodies an office "suite", under the
conditions defined in the Bill and setting the price that you consider
satisfactory. If you did not, it would not be due to restrictions
imposed by the law, but to business decisions relative to the method of
commercializing your products, decisions with which the State is not
involved.

To continue; you note that:" 2. The bill, by making the use of open
source software compulsory, would establish discriminatory and non
competitive practices in the contracting and purchasing by public
bodies..."

This statement is just a reiteration of the previous one, and so the
response can be found above. However, let us concern ourselves for a
moment with your comment regarding "non-competitive ... practices."

Of course, in defining any kind of purchase, the buyer sets conditions
which relate to the proposed use of the good or service. From the start,
this excludes certain manufacturers from the possibility of competing,
but does not exclude them "a priori", but rather based on a series of
principles determined by the autonomous will of the purchaser, and so
the process takes place in conformance with the law. And in the Bill it
is established that *no one* is excluded from competing as far as he
guarantees the fulfillment of the basic principles.

Furthermore, the Bill *stimulates* competition, since it tends to
generate a supply of software with better conditions of usability, and
to better existing work, in a model of continuous improvement.

On the other hand, the central aspect of competivity is the chance to
provide better choices to the consumer. Now, it is impossible to ignore
the fact that marketing does not play a neutral role when the product is
offered on the market (since accepting the opposite would lead one to
suppose that firms' expenses in marketing lack any sense), and that
therefore a significant expense under this heading can influence the
decisions of the purchaser. This influence of marketing is in large
measure reduced by the bill that we are backing, since the choice within
the framework proposed is based on the *technical merits* of the product
and not on the effort put into commercialization by the producer; in
this sense, competitiveness is increased, since the smallest software
producer can compete on equal terms with the most powerful corporations.

It is necessary to stress that there is no position more
anti-competitive than that of the big software producers, which
frequently abuse their dominant position, since in innumerable cases
they propose as a solution to problems raised by users: "update your
software to the new version" (at the user's expense, naturally);
furthermore, it is common to find arbitrary cessation of technical help
for products, which, in the provider's judgment alone, are "old"; and
so, to receive any kind of technical assistance, the user finds himself
forced to migrate to new versions (with non-trivial costs, especially as
changes in hardware platform are often involved). And as the whole
infrastructure is based on proprietary data formats, the user stays
"trapped" in the need to continue using products from the same supplier,
or to make the huge effort to change to another environment (probably
also proprietary).

You add: "3. So, by compelling the State to favor a business model based
entirely on open source, the bill would only discourage the local and
international manufacturing companies, which are the ones which really
undertake important expenditures, create a significant number of direct
and indirect jobs, as well as contributing to the GNP, as opposed to a
model of open source software which tends to have an ever weaker
economic impact, since it mainly creates jobs in the service sector."

I do not agree with your statement. Partly because of what you yourself
point out in paragraph 6 of your letter, regarding the relative weight
of services in the context of software use. This contradiction alone
would invalidate your position. The service model, adopted by a large
number of companies in the software industry, is much larger in economic
terms, and with a tendency to increase, than the licensing of programs.

On the other hand, the private sector of the economy has the widest
possible freedom to choose the economic model which best suits its
interests, even if this freedom of choice is often obscured subliminally
by the disproportionate expenditure on marketing by the producers of
proprietary software.

In addition, a reading of your opinion would lead to the conclusion that
the State market is crucial and essential for the proprietary software
industry, to such a point that the choice made by the State in this bill
would completely eliminate the market for these firms. If that is true,
we can deduce that the State must be subsidizing the proprietary
software industry. In the unlikely event that this were true, the State
would have the right to apply the subsidies in the area it considered of
greatest social value; it is undeniable, in this improbable hypothesis,
that if the State decided to subsidize software, it would have to do so
choosing the free over the proprietary, considering its social effect
and the rational use of taxpayers money.

In respect of the jobs generated by proprietary software in countries
like ours, these mainly concern technical tasks of little aggregate
value; at the local level, the technicians who provide support for
proprietary software produced by transnational companies do not have the
possibility of fixing bugs, not necessarily for lack of technical
capability or of talent, but because they do not have access to the
source code to fix it. 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.

It is a common phenomenon in developing countries that local software
industries obtain the majority of their takings in the service sector,
or in the creation of "ad hoc" software. Therefore, any negative impact
that the application of the Bill might have in this sector will be more
than compensated by a growth in demand for services (as long as these
are carried out to high quality standards). If the transnational
software companies decide not to compete under these new rules of the
game, it is likely that they will undergo some decrease in takings in
terms of payment for licenses; however, considering that these firms
continue to allege that much of the software used by the State has been
illegally copied, one can see that the impact will not be very serious.
Certainly, in any case their fortune will be determined by market laws,
changes in which cannot be avoided; many firms traditionally associated
with proprietary software have already set out on the road (supported by
copious expense) of providing services associated with free software,
which shows that the models are not mutually exclusive.

With this bill the State is deciding that it needs to preserve certain
fundamental values. And it is deciding this based on its sovereign
power, without affecting any of the constitutional guarantees. If these
values could be guaranteed without having to choose a particular
economic model, the effects of the law would be even more beneficial. In
any case, it should be clear that the State does not choose an economic
model; if it happens that there only exists one economic model capable
of providing software which provides the basic guarantee of these
principles, this is because of historical circumstances, not because of
an arbitrary choice of a given model.

Your letter continues: "4. The bill imposes the use of open source
software without considering the dangers that this can bring from the
point of view of security, guarantee, and possible violation of the
intellectual property rights of third parties."

Alluding in an abstract way to "the dangers this can bring", without
specifically mentioning a single one of these supposed dangers, shows at
the least some lack of knowledge of the topic. So, allow me to enlighten
you on these points.

On security:

National security has already been mentioned in general terms in the
initial discussion of the basic principles of the bill. In more specific
terms, relative to the security of the software itself, it is well known
that all software (whether proprietary or free) contains errors or
"bugs" (in programmers' slang). But it is also well known that the bugs
in free software are fewer, and are fixed much more quickly, than in
proprietary software. It is not in vain that numerous public bodies
responsible for the IT security of state systems in developed countries
require the use of free software for the same conditions of security and
efficiency.

What is impossible to prove is that proprietary software is more secure
than free, without the public and open inspection of the scientific
community and users in general. This demonstration is impossible because
the model of proprietary software itself prevents this analysis, so that
any guarantee of security is based only on promises of good intentions
(biased, by any reckoning) made by the producer itself, or its
contractors.

It should be remembered that in many cases, the licensing conditions
include Non-Disclosure clauses which prevent the user from publicly
revealing security flaws found in the licensed proprietary product.

In respect of the guarantee:
A

s you know perfectly well, or could find out by reading the "End User
License Agreement" of the products you license, in the great majority of
cases the guarantees are limited to replacement of the storage medium in
case of defects, but in no case is compensation given for direct or
indirect damages, loss of profits, etc... If as a result of a security
bug in one of your products, not fixed in time by yourselves, an
attacker managed to compromise crucial State systems, what guarantees,
reparations and compensation would your company make in accordance with
your licensing conditions? The guarantees of proprietary software,
inasmuch as programs are delivered ``AS IS'', that is, in the state in
which they are, with no additional responsibility of the provider in
respect of function, in no way differ from those normal with free
software.

On Intellectual Property:

Questions of intellectual property fall outside the scope of this bill,
since they are covered by specific other laws. The model of free
software in no way implies ignorance of these laws, and in fact the
great majority of free software is covered by copyright. In reality, the
inclusion of this question in your observations shows your confusion in
respect of the legal framework in which free software is developed. The
inclusion of the intellectual property of others in works claimed as
one's own is not a practice that has been noted in the free software
community; whereas, unfortunately, it has been in the area of
proprietary software. As an example, the condemnation by the Commercial
Court of Nanterre, France, on 27th September 2001 of Microsoft Corp. to
a penalty of 3 million francs in damages and interest, for violation of
intellectual property (piracy, to use the unfortunate term that your
firm commonly uses in its publicity).

You go on to say that: "The bill uses the concept of open source
software incorrectly, since it does not necessarily imply that the
software is free or of zero cost, and so arrives at mistaken conclusions
regarding State savings, with no cost-benefit analysis to validate its
position."

This observation is wrong; in principle, freedom and lack of cost are
orthogonal concepts: there is software which is proprietary and charged
for (for example, MS Office), software which is proprietary and free of
charge (MS Internet Explorer), software which is free and charged for
(Red Hat, SuSE etc GNU/Linux distributions), software which is free and
not charged for (Apache, Open Office, Mozilla), and even software which
can be licensed in a range of combinations (MySQL).

Certainly free software is not necessarily free of charge. And the text
of the bill does not state that it has to be so, as you will have noted
after reading it. The definitions included in the Bill state clearly
*what* should be considered free software, at no point referring to
freedom from charges. Although the possibility of savings in payments
for proprietary software licenses are mentioned, the foundations of the
bill clearly refer to the fundamental guarantees to be preserved and to
the stimulus to local technological development. Given that a democratic
State must support these principles, it has no other choice than to use
software with publicly available source code, and to exchange
information only in standard formats.

If the State does not use software with these characteristics, it will
be weakening basic republican principles. Luckily, free software also
implies lower total costs; however, even given the hypothesis (easily
disproved) that it was more expensive than proprietary software, the
simple existence of an effective free software tool for a particular IT
function would oblige the State to use it; not by command of this Bill,
but because of the basic principles we enumerated at the start, and
which arise from the very essence of the lawful democratic State.

You continue: "6. It is wrong to think that Open Source Software is free
of charge. Research by the Gartner Group (an important investigator of
the technological market recognized at world level) has shown that the
cost of purchase of software (operating system and applications) is only
8% of the total cost which firms and institutions take on for a rational
and truly beneficial use of the technology. The other 92% consists of:
installation costs, enabling, support, maintenance, administration, and
down-time."

This argument repeats that already given in paragraph 5 and partly
contradicts paragraph 3. For the sake of brevity we refer to the
comments on those paragraphs. However, allow me to point out that your
conclusion is logically false: even if according to Gartner Group the
cost of software is on average only 8% of the total cost of use, this
does not in any way deny the existence of software which is free of
charge, that is, with a licensing cost of zero.

In addition, in this paragraph you correctly point out that the service
components and losses due to down-time make up the largest part of the
total cost of software use, which, as you will note, contradicts your
statement regarding the small value of services suggested in paragraph
3. Now the use of free software contributes significantly to reduce the
remaining life-cycle costs. This reduction in the costs of installation,
support etc. can be noted in several areas: in the first place, the
competitive service model of free software, support and maintenance for
which can be freely contracted out to a range of suppliers competing on
the grounds of quality and low cost. This is true for installation,
enabling, and support, and in large part for maintenance. In the second
place, due to the reproductive characteristics of the model, maintenance
carried out for an application is easily replicable, without incurring
large costs (that is, without paying more than once for the same thing)
since modifications, if one wishes, can be incorporated in the common
fund of knowledge. Thirdly, the huge costs caused by non-functioning
software ("blue screens of death", malicious code such as virus, worms,
and trojans, exceptions, general protection faults and other well-known
problems) are reduced considerably by using more stable software; and it
is well known that one of the most notable virtues of free software is
its stability.

You further state that: "7. One of the arguments behind the bill is the
supposed freedom from costs of open-source software, compared with the
costs of commercial software, without taking into account the fact that
there exist types of volume licensing which can be highly advantageous
for the State, as has happened in other countries."

I have already pointed out that what is in question is not the cost of
the software but the principles of freedom of information,
accessibility, and security. These arguments have been covered
extensively in the preceding paragraphs to which I would refer you.

On the other hand, there certainly exist types of volume licensing
(although unfortunately proprietary software does not satisfy the basic
principles). But as you correctly pointed out in the immediately
preceding paragraph of your letter, they only manage to reduce the
impact of a component which makes up no more than 8% of the total.

You continue: "8. In addition, the alternative adopted by the bill (I)
is clearly more expensive, due to the high costs of software migration,
and (II) puts at risk compatibility and interoperability of the IT
platforms within the State, and between the State and the private
sector, given the hundreds of versions of open source software on the
market."

Let us analyze your statement in two parts. Your first argument, that
migration implies high costs, is in reality an argument in favor of the
Bill. Because the more time goes by, the more difficult migration to
another technology will become; and at the same time, the security risks
associated with proprietary software will continue to increase. In this
way, the use of proprietary systems and formats will make the State ever
more dependent on specific suppliers. Once a policy of using free
software has been established (which certainly, does imply some cost)
then on the contrary migration from one system to another becomes very
simple, since all data is stored in open formats. On the other hand,
migration to an open software context implies no more costs than
migration between two different proprietary software contexts, which
invalidates your argument completely.

The second argument refers to "problems in interoperability of the IT
platforms within the State, and between the State and the private
sector" This statement implies a certain lack of knowledge of the way in
which free software is built, which does not maximize the dependence of
the user on a particular platform, as normally happens in the realm of
proprietary software. Even when there are multiple free software
distributions, and numerous programs which can be used for the same
function, interoperability is guaranteed as much by the use of standard
formats, as required by the bill, as by the possibility of creating
interoperable software given the availability of the source code.

You then say that: "9. The majority of open source code does not offer
adequate levels of service nor the guarantee from recognized
manufacturers of high productivity on the part of the users, which has
led various public organizations to retract their decision to go with an
open source software solution and to use commercial software in its
place."

This observation is without foundation. In respect of the guarantee,
your argument was rebutted in the response to paragraph 4. In respect of
support services, it is possible to use free software without them (just
as also happens with proprietary software), but anyone who does need
them can obtain support separately, whether from local firms or from
international corporations, again just as in the case of proprietary
software.

On the other hand, it would contribute greatly to our analysis if you
could inform us about free software projects *established* in public
bodies which have already been abandoned in favor of proprietary
software. We know of a good number of cases where the opposite has taken
place, but not know of any where what you describe has taken place.

You continue by observing that: "10. The bill discourages the creativity
of the Peruvian software industry, which invoices 40 million US$/year,
exports 4 million US$ (10th in ranking among non-traditional exports,
more than handicrafts) and is a source of highly qualified employment.
With a law that encourages the use of open source, software programmers
lose their intellectual property rights and their main source of
payment."

It is clear enough that nobody is forced to commercialize their code as
free software. The only thing to take into account is that if it is not
free software, it cannot be sold to the public sector. This is not in
any case the main market for the national software industry. We covered
some questions referring to the influence of the Bill on the generation
of employment which would be both highly technically qualified and in
better conditions for competition above, so it seems unnecessary to
insist on this point.

What follows in your statement is incorrect. On the one hand, no author
of free software loses his intellectual property rights, unless he
expressly wishes to place his work in the public domain. The free
software movement has always been very respectful of intellectual
property, and has generated widespread public recognition of its
authors. Names like those of Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds, Guido van
Rossum, Larry Wall, Miguel de Icaza, Andrew Tridgell, Theo de Raadt,
Andrea Arcangeli, Bruce Perens, Darren Reed, Alan Cox, Eric Raymond, and
many others, are recognized world-wide for their contributions to the
development of software that is used today by millions of people
throughout the world. On the other hand, to say that the rewards for
authors rights make up the main source of payment of Peruvian
programmers is in any case a guess, in particular since there is no
proof to this effect, nor a demonstration of how the use of free
software by the State would influence these payments.

You go on to say that: "11. Open source software, since it can be
distributed without charge, does not allow the generation of income for
its developers through exports. In this way, the multiplier effect of
the sale of software to other countries is weakened, and so in turn is
the growth of the industry, while Government rules ought on the contrary
to stimulate local industry."

This statement shows once again complete ignorance of the mechanisms of
and market for free software. It tries to claim that the market of sale
of non- exclusive rights for use (sale of licenses) is the only possible
one for the software industry, when you yourself pointed out several
paragraphs above that it is not even the most important one. The
incentives that the bill offers for the growth of a supply of better
qualified professionals, together with the increase in experience that
working on a large scale with free software within the State will bring
for Peruvian technicians, will place them in a highly competitive
position to offer their services abroad.

You then state that: "12. In the Forum, the use of open source software
in education was discussed, without mentioning the complete collapse of
this initiative in a country like Mexico, where precisely the State
employees who founded the project now state that open source software
did not make it possible to offer a learning experience to pupils in the
schools, did not take into account the capability at a national level to
give adequate support to the platform, and that the software did not and
does not allow for the levels of platform integration that now exist in
schools."

In fact Mexico has gone into reverse with the Red Escolar (Schools
Network) project. This is due precisely to the fact that the driving
forces behind the Mexican project used license costs as their main
argument, instead of the other reasons specified in our project, which
are far more essential. Because of this conceptual mistake, and as a
result of the lack of effective support from the SEP (Secretary of State
for Public Education), the assumption was made that to implant free
software in schools it would be enough to drop their software budget and
send them a CD ROM with Gnu/Linux instead. Of course this failed, and it
couldn't have been otherwise, just as school laboratories fail when they
use proprietary software and have no budget for implementation and
maintenance. That's exactly why our bill is not limited to making the
use of free software mandatory, but recognizes the need to create a
viable migration plan, in which the State undertakes the technical
transition in an orderly way in order to then enjoy the advantages of
free software.

You end with a rhetorical question: "13. If open source software
satisfies all the requirements of State bodies, why do you need a law to
adopt it? Shouldn't it be the market which decides freely which products
give most benefits or value?"

We agree that in the private sector of the economy, it must be the
market that decides which products to use, and no state interference is
permissible there. However, in the case of the public sector, the
reasoning is not the same: as we have already established, the state
archives, handles, and transmits information which does not belong to
it, but which is entrusted to it by citizens, who have no alternative
under the rule of law. As a counterpart to this legal requirement, the
State must take extreme measures to safeguard the integrity,
confidentiality, and accessibility of this information. The use of
proprietary software raises serious doubts as to whether these
requirements can be fulfilled, lacks conclusive evidence in this
respect, and so is not suitable for use in the public sector.

The need for a law is based, firstly, on the realization of the
fundamental principles listed above in the specific area of software;
secondly, on the fact that the State is not an ideal homogeneous entity,
but made up of multiple bodies with varying degrees of autonomy in
decision making. Given that it is inappropriate to use proprietary
software, the fact of establishing these rules in law will prevent the
personal discretion of any state employee from putting at risk the
information which belongs to citizens. And above all, because it
constitutes an up-to-date reaffirmation in relation to the means of
management and communication of information used today, it is based on
the republican principle of openness to the public.

In conformance with this universally accepted principle, the citizen has
the right to know all information held by the State and not covered by
well- founded declarations of secrecy based on law. Now, software deals
with information and is itself information. Information in a special
form, capable of being interpreted by a machine in order to execute
actions, but crucial information all the same because the citizen has a
legitimate right to know, for example, how his vote is computed or his
taxes calculated. And for that he must have free access to the source
code and be able to prove to his satisfaction the programs used for
electoral computations or calculation of his taxes.

I wish you the greatest respect, and would like to repeat that my office
will always be open for you to expound your point of view to whatever
level of detail you consider suitable.

Cordially,
DR. EDGAR DAVID VILLANUEVA NUÑEZ
Congressman of the Republic of Perú.