Anson Uy, president of Touch Solutions Inc., local partner of Red Hat said there is a need to 'uncover the truth' behind this strategy. He did not, however, identify which companies in particular are guilty of this practice.

'In the end we believe that the test of time and the credibility of Red Hat will prove its value,' he said in an interview with Computerworld Philippines.He said his company will soon launch its own information campaign about the 'other side' in the competition between proprietary and open-source software vendors.

According to him, competing software vendors are out to discredit open-source by sponsoring studies that highlight flaws of using open-source solutions and pirating open source developers. He noted sponsored studies involving North American companies and North American IT staff aimed at proving that open source would be more expensive over the long term due to 'higher cost of labor.'

'We know that we are a developing country (Philippines) and our labor cost is extremely competitive vis-'-vis our North American counterparts,' Anson said. 'We also know that the license price of software is generally global so what is 'cheap' software for our North American friends may turn out to be more expensive for us.'

'Poaching' expertise