[ossig] Thai ICT Minister has negative views on open source

[Ditesh Kumar]

Part about open source from the article:

"On the subject of open source software, he said the current government
plan was a case of the blind leading the blind, as neither the people
who are in charge nor the people in industry seem to know the dangers of
open source software.

"With open source, there is no intellectual property. Anyone can use it
and all your ideas become public domain. If nobody can make money from
it, there will be no development and open source software quickly
becomes outdated," he said.

Apart from Linux, he claimed that most open source software is often
abandoned and not developed, and leads to a lot of low-quality software
with lots of bugs.

"As a programmer, if I can write good code, why should I give it away?
Thailand can do good source code without open source," he said."

Read the full article below.

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>From http://bangkokpost.net/151106_Database/15Nov2006_data001.php :

U-TURN AT ICT MINISTRY

New ICT Minister plans to overturn many of the decisions of his
predecessors

DON SAMBANDARAKSA

ICT Minister Sitthichai.... puts forth his radical vision for 3G in
Thailand, but views open source as buggy, useless software

In his first "meet the press" session as ICT Minister, Professor
Sitthichai Pokai-udom put forth his radical vision for 3G in Thailand,
condemned open source for turning out buggy, useless software and
promised to make the civil servants in the ICT Ministry proud of their
organisation once again.

Speaking at the IT Press Club, Minister Sitthichai said that he was
looking for an investment of around 20 billion baht for Thai Mobile and
between 10 and 18 billion for CAT in order to complete the roll-out of
next generation communication networks for the two former state
enterprises.

Sitthichai said on detailed questioning that Thai Mobile would upgrade
its network and operate a WCDMA 3G network while CAT Telecom would roll
out a CDMA2000 EV-DO network.

He said that rather than using public money to compete with the private
sector, he expected today's private mobile operators to gladly become
partners to CAT and TOT and effectively lease their networks and focus
on the marketing aspect. He reasoned that none of the incumbents would
want to invest in a 3G network as 4G would come along in five years and
render today's investments obsolete.

Today this is done in many countries. Virgin Mobile uses the T-Mobile
and Singtel networks in the UK and Singapore, respectively, to operate
as a virtual network, for instance.

Pijitra Thanomsab shows her national ID smart card at Impact Arena,
Muang Thong Thani. The project needs a new Terms of Reference, according
to Sitthichai.

"I see no reason to put CAT or TOT in the stock market, but I'm saying
this to a group of Thai journalists. Tomorrow I will be talking to
foreign journalists and I will tell them that CAT and TOT will be put on
the market at a suitable time, which is not now," he said in one of his
typical moments of candour.

The ICT Minister disagreed with privatisation of the nation's
telecommunications infrastructure, suggesting private firms would only
work for their shareholders' profit and neglect rural areas and
redundant infrastructure for disaster recovery as neither are
profitable. He said that CAT and TOT could easily ask for budget for
large-scale investment projects directly from the government budget.

He also said that merging TOT and CAT would be inevitable and he would
look at merging the three boards of directors (along with Thailand Post,
itself half of what was the Communications Authority of Thailand) in a
few months.

On the subject of open source software, he said the current government
plan was a case of the blind leading the blind, as neither the people
who are in charge nor the people in industry seem to know the dangers of
open source software.

"With open source, there is no intellectual property. Anyone can use it
and all your ideas become public domain. If nobody can make money from
it, there will be no development and open source software quickly
becomes outdated," he said.

Apart from Linux, he claimed that most open source software is often
abandoned and not developed, and leads to a lot of low-quality software
with lots of bugs.

"As a programmer, if I can write good code, why should I give it away?
Thailand can do good source code without open source," he said.

First Thai animation movie "Khan Kluay" features a cuddlier-than-Dumbo
elephant. The animation and outsourcing sectors gained strong support
from the new minister.

The new ICT Minister expressed his belief in censorship and said that
even the most avid freedom of speech advocate would change his mind if
he sees doctored pictures of his daughter's head on a naked body posted
on the Internet.

The ICT Ministry will soon put forward draft Acts to the National
Legislative Assembly on cybercrime and on web sites that are
pornographic or considered lese majeste, allowing officials to arrest,
fine and imprison offenders.

In another reversal of policy from the previous government, Minister
Sitthichai said that the ICT Ministry was as important as the Ministry
of Commerce or Industry and would increase in importance in the future.
Previously, there was talk of disbanding the ICT Ministry and absorbing
its functions into the Ministry of Science and Technology.

He said that in the past, the previous government had a choice of
putting in place a capable ICT Minister or one who could be easily
controlled by politicians.

"Those with capability may love the country too much while others may do
everything and anything just to remain in power as Minister. I'm not
talking about any political party in particular," he said.

Sitthichai said that his number one priority would be in making the ICT
Ministry more transparent and make the people who work in it proud to
work in a clean and effective organisation.

"All our problems start with a lack of transparency. If people are not
corrupt, procurement will be faster and better. Putting in place new
projects and hiring talented people will be easier. I don't understand
why all the committee meetings are secret. All the doors should be open
to observers," he said, adding that the media can now sit in front of
his own office and see the facial expressions of the people who visit
him and whether they leave his office smiling or crying.

He said that problems in projects such as the smart ID card project
arose because of a need to interpret grey areas of the Terms of
Reference. He said the new ToR would be open to public debate so that
there would be no room for interpretation and no room for corruption.

Sitthichai also called the e-Auction regulations a mess and a pointless
show of technology, with no real impact on preventing corruption or
collusion. However, as much as he would prefer paper auctions, he cannot
do much as e-Auctions are now part of the Ministry of Finance
regulations.

Moving forward, Minister Sitthichai said he looked forward to working
with his friend and Sipa director Dr Arvuth Ploysongsaeng. He said that
we can expect a new ICT Master Plan by ICT Expo in August. He said that
the IT sector should continue to focus on animation and multimedia and
outsourcing, to which he would like to add embedded systems as a top
priority.