After just over a month in office, Thailands new ICT minister Professor Sitthichai Pokai-udom has declared the current government focus on Free and Open Source Software a case of the blind leading the blind.
In a wide ranging "meet the press" session, Professor Pokai-udom set down his view on the future of the ICT industry in Thailand. His vision included a focus on developing outsourcing services, multi-media and animation and embedded devices. It emphatically did not include Open Source.
In the meeting Pokai-udom claimed that Free and Open Source Software was inherently inferior. "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 If nobody can make money from it, there will be no development and open source software quickly becomes outdated," said Pokai-udom.
