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U.S. Asked to Put Purchasing Power to Good Use
James Love writes "Today Ralph Nader and I wrote U.S. Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch
Daniels to ask the federal government to use its power as a big consumer to
address competition issues in the market for PC client software. These are
some of the practices we want OMB to examine: OMB is asked to provide information on federal expenditures for Microsoft products, determine if a software "monoculture"
makes the federal government more vulnerable to computer viruses or unauthorized access to federal computers, and to consider a number of strategies to use the US government's purchasing power to promote competition and make Microsoft behave; OMB is asked to consider if Microsoft should be required (as a matter of procurement policy) to fully disclose the file formats of its office productivity and multimedia programs, so that the data created in such programs could be reliably read by non-Microsoft software; OMB is asked to consider if it should place a cap of the market share for any one vendor of PC client software, and have the size of the cap depend upon Microsoft's willingness to open up its interface information, or port its MS Office products to additional platforms; OMB is also asked to consider if it would be more efficient to buy code for office productivity products (and release into the public domain), rather than spend billions to lease software."
Sorry buddy, but M$ and sun are the only two companies that have proven themselves able to support the task. If anything the US gov't would rather have a custom OS written for themselves by Sun or M$ than go to linux.
Nader used to be someone to look up to, but recently he's become yet another bandwagon activist. There's more to competition than being anti-M$.
Linux is dead.
LU
Here is a man who rails against "big business" and "strong arm tactics", "big interests" and the like, and here he goes asking "big brother" to flex it's muscles. When are people going to wake up and realize that Nader is a hack, reaching out for publicity.
The Corvair is rolling in its grave.
I'm sure people like RMS send the government letters like this daily.
Writing a letter to the government (regardless of what 'big name politician' you got to sign it with you) isn't a newsworthy article. What comes of it is.
I just wrote a letter to George W saying he should use linux on his personal computer. Do I deserve recognition? No, unless George switches because of my letter.
I'd rather see results than efforts.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Boo-hoo! Instead of beating Microsoft in the marketplace, it appears now that Ralph and his band of merry socialists want to use the heavy hand of Government to manipulate the OS market. Why does every problem require a government solution for Mr. Nader? If you don't like Microsoft, don't use their products, tell your friends not to use their products, tell your employer not to use Microsoft and go set up a stupid Geocities free web page telling the world not to use Microsoft. Eventually, if you are not some unbathed OS zealot, people might start to listen. If they don't, don't go crying to Uncle Sam.
I have no problem with the Government diversifying their OS platform for protection against worms, trojans, viruses and other security issues but this is nothing more than Nader bashing Microsoft and trying to use the US Government as the club. Trying to get HIS way, not America's way. The market has already shown America's desires.
I don't remember electing Nader to anything, anyways (but I am glad he runs). Yet, he is constantly trying to bypass our elected officials and influence the bureaucracywith threats of legal action and media assaults. Sometimes, I wish he would have been a an avid Corvair driver.
Disclaimer: I don't even like Microsoft operating systems! I just don't know what's worse, dealing with Windows or listening to Nader's griping!
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
You all should get out of your left wing biases for a second to realize that Nader isn't well respected in many circles. He is reviled as a Socialist nutcase by the Right and Libertarians at a minimum as a general rule consider him to be a clueless luddite (hmm isn't that being redundant?)
As much as you all don't want to hear it, Jerry Falwell would be taken more seriously by the current elected government if he proposed this. You need to send a messenger that will be respected by the recipient when dealing with politics. The best person actually to make the case for Linux is Robert Bork. He has come out against Microsoft (in support of the anti-trust case no less) and if he were to tell Bush that Star Office is better, Bush would probably listen.
Remember people, Bush and his people decide WHERE the money will be spent, Congress merely allocates it. If Bush wants to, he can tell the entire federal bureacracy to sign no new contracts and to not renew any contracts with companies like Microsoft and use only OpenOffice.