Slashdot Mirror
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."
BBC News reports that IBM has signed a major contract to provide GNU/Linux OS computers to Germany's Interior Ministry, which oversees law enforcement ( IBM signs Linux deal with Germany ). A Microsoft spokeswoman was disconcerted by the news, nonsensically stating that, "Any policy that favours one thing over another isn't helpful." Slashdot ( Germany, IBM Sign Major Linux Deal ).
Kuro5hin has a good story on a new report from Taiwan's official news agency that the goverment is pushing a Software Libre program ( Taiwan to start national plan to push free software ). Not only will the program include software development, but also extensive training and education. Most interesting is that the "national education system will switch to Open Source in order to provide a diverse IT education environment and ensure the people's rights to freedom of information." See also, Slashdot ( Taiwan to Start National Push For Free Software ).
Might Taiwan's initiative be related to a ZDNet News report on some of the difficulties Microsoft's licensing practices are creating in Taiwan ( Taiwan: MS may have violated trade laws )? This issue was discussed in depth on Kuro5hin ( Backlash against Microsoft intensifies in Taiwan; MS investigated for price gouging ).
Governments outside the U.S. are increasingly coming to the realization that it makes little sense to send their taxpayer dollars to Redmond, WA, USA as part of a "Microsoft Tax." Use of open source software not only saves the government money, but also helps to develop an indigenous IT industry.
Will the U.S. government realize the benefits of openness as well? Jamie Love, of the Consumer Project on Technology hopes so. He and Ralph Nader have sent a letter to the Office of Management and Budget encouraging the consideration of various policies that, through software procurement, will address quesions of Microsoft's monopoly as well as other issues ( Procurement policy and competition and security in software markets ). While the letter doesn't specifically recommend the adoption of open source software, it clearly a major aspect to consider.
Below are some of the practices Nader and Love want OMB to examine:
Ralph Nader said "The federal government spends billions of dollars on software purchases from one company that is continually raising prices, making its products incompatible with previous versions in order to force upgrades, deliberately creating interoperability problems with would-be competitors, and is well known for engaging in many other anticompetitive practices. Would a business that was spending this much money be such a passive consumer? "
James Love said "The US Government could easily solve all of its concerns over the Microsoft's anticompetitive conduct by being a smarter consumer. Taxpayers are spending millions to restrain Microsoft's monopoly, and billions to support the Microsoft monopoly. There needs to be a more coherent strategy."
Copyright (c) 2002 by the Information Society Project. This material may be distributed only subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Open Publication License, v1.0 or later (the latest version is presently available at http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/). Minor typographical corrections made.
Open source invites terrorism - study
By Thomas C Greene in Washington
Posted: 06/04/2002 at 08:33 EST
A Washington think tank calling itself the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution is preparing to release a 'study' warning that the widespread use of open source software will allow international terrorists to have their way with us.
"Terrorists trying to hack or disrupt U.S. computer networks might find it easier if the federal government attempts to switch to 'open source' as some groups propose," the group warned in a press release.
We imagine the argument will have to go something like this: Microsoft software is safer because the company carefully conceals its security flaws; thus evil terrorists will never find them on their own. But with open source products, the Evil Doers will be able to audit the source code and find novel weaknesses they can exploit to bring Christendom to its knees.
We say that because we know they can't possibly try to argue that MS offers inherently more secure products. Although they might; as our friend Richard M. Smith points out, the Institution takes money from Redmond.
This could explain why a group purportedly devoted to the 'perfection of democracy' would, with a straight face, recommend the MCSE as a qualification for adult participation in a democratic economy superior to a university degree.
"Effective participation in the American political economy has always been substantially dependent upon an education that goes beyond basic verbal and mathematical skills," the author of this 'study' intones.
And quite right he is; only we rather suspect, like most adults, that a liberal education is the answer to that problem, not an advanced course in rectifying BSODs.
Nevertheless the author cheerfully reports that "87 per cent of Human Resource managers surveyed believed that MCSE's are equally or more successful than college graduates."
We look forward to learning how MS software and its associated usurious licensing schemes will protect us from terrorism. The 'study' is to be released next week. ® The Register
security through obscurity = modding down anti-linux posts so maybe noone will see them
But that misses the point he is trying to make. He is suggesting that the government would be better off taking the *billions* of dollars it currently spends on MS Licenses and create it's own package or modify an existing open-source package. This way they would have access to the source and can modify it at will, as opposed to waiting for SPx and watching as their war machines get 0wned.
http://partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/acrosdk/do cs.html#filefmtspecs
Why does everyone think PDF is a closed spec?
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
What manufacturer's don't support it?
Intel, AMD, Dell, Sun, HP/Compaq, VIA, IBM, Creative Labs, Samsung, ATI, Nvidia, Matrox, 3ware, Mylex, 3com, D-Link, etc. all support Linux. Need I list more?
Samsung even makes a Linux only Alpha Motherboard called the UP1500.
How about software companies?
Adobe, IBM, Oracle, Sun, Computer Associates, Apple, Macromedia, Borland, Netscape all produce some linux software. That's a list of some of the biggest software companies in the world.
Uh, the government is already influencing the marketplace in a major influence at that. Nader appears to be asking for the government to influencing it less or at least differently, as to not support a convicted criminal.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
1. Unless the specification for these standard file formats is very precise, there will always be interoperability problems.
If there's one thing gov't can do, it's spec the hell out of something. I don't think this would be a problem if they addressed it in earnest.
2. Even if the office software "supports" a standard format, it obviously isn't going to default to that format, so you'll have to deal with the training issues (always use "save as...").
;)
Why can't it default to that format? Make that a part of the spec? And is it that hard to 'Save As'? That may be a loaded question
3. Microsoft (or any other commercial vendor) would claim that they need to be able to modify or extend the "standard" format in order to be able to innovate new features. This is actually a valid complaint, and difficult to work around. If you allow proprietary extensions to a standard format, it's no longer truly standard.
So make that part of the deal too - if MS has a way to make it better, sweet! Just make the additional spec open as well. No proprietary crap allowed.
I think the parent comment is ingenious and hope to see it pushed loudly.
KM
Kinda like Moe, but just a little more Kool
The NMCI (contract mentioned above) is already being put in place in a couple bases already. The base I am at already has 1000 'NMCI seats'. The rental cost for the Windows 2000 (only thing NMCI will deal with) ranges from 200 to 350 a month for 3 years. You pay additional for a developer's seat (which allows you to change the configuration) since they may have to come back and reinstall windows so you play an extra support fee. Not only are the computers rented, it seems that if your software is not on the 'approved' list, you have to have a different computer running that software on a different network and is causing many people to have two computers on the desk. One 95/98 machine to run the program that was written originally for either DOS or 3.11 which does not work on an NT based computer to do their job and another computer to check email (the NMCI computer). The software that are considered a legacy application will 'either disabled or placed on a central workstation for people to share' which may cause problems with older billing and other 'private' (not security clasification) systems that should not shared.
Link:
https://nmci.navair.navy.mil
"The consumer doesn't get to choose if he/she wants this safety device -- and especially in this case, it isn't proven to save lives."
l
h tm #6
Really? Thats not what the government tells me. Who is closer to the truth, you or the government? While what is below isnt the actual data, it is more convincing than your statement:
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/airbags/airbgQandA.htm
Why should I leave the air bags in my vehicle turned on? Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for each age, 5 through 27 years old. Air bags reduce the risk of dying in a direct frontal crash by about 30 percent. Air bags have saved over 2,600 lives through November 1, 1997. They also have prevented a large number of serious head and chest injuries. Overall, air bags add to the protection offered by seat belts. In the vast majority of cases, adults are safer with an air bag that is "on."
http://www.iihs.org/safety_facts/qanda/airbags.
Yes. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, more than 6,200 people are alive as of 11/1/00 because of their airbags. Driver deaths are being reduced by about 14 percent. Passenger airbags are reducing deaths by about 11 percent. People who use their safety belts may think they don't really need airbags. But they do. Deaths in airbag-equipped cars are 12 percent lower among drivers using their belts and 9 percent lower among passengers with belts, compared with deaths in vehicles without airbags.
If they were to do that, there would be no way that they could make the kind of profit on MSLinux or any gpled software that they do now.
As you said, their embrace and extend tactic would not work with GPLed software. Which is a great thing about GPL software.
And once everything is outsourced and all of the critical data lives on servers that are not owned by the DOD, THEN the fun will begin.
New project? Not in the contract. We'll let you know when we'll even answer and how much we'll gouge you for working on it. It not like we have to deliver a competitive bid is it?
Something's broke? Sorry - fixing that is not spelled out in the contract. It'll cost you to fix it. No, it doesn't matter that YOU used to handle this with no sweat. Not in the contract.
Been there. Watched that. Worked on undoing it. ( It was a different three-letter outsourcing company, but he same song.) The bosses thought they'd save money. Current IT budget X. The outsource contract is bid as 0.9 X. The work they'll do, which IS specified in the contract is 0.4 of what we did for X.
I once saw a lawyer carrying the actual contract. It looked like the Oxford Engligh Dictionary. Amazingly though, every new hire entry-level desktop tech KNEW what wasn't in there.
You're doomed.
Ever dream you could fly? Get up from the Flight Sim. I Fly
I'm reasonably certain that Congress does not legislate whether particular states must have HOV lanes or include certain requirements in their school curricula. In fact, AFAIK, these are areas that are explicitly left up to the states. Moreover, I don't think Congress legislates how the Department of Education or EPA carry out their legislative mandates. This is left up to the executive branch, and occurs through government rulemaking, or disbursements of funds, rather than legislation. Often the rulemaking occurs without any significant opportunity for review and comment by the public.
My point is that the departments of the executive branch use their discretionary authority to disburse funds to accomplish their mandates, and that this discretion is used to effect policy in ways that may or may not be what the legislature had in mind. The same is true of OMB exercising its discretion in how it spends our money running the government.
A feature is an objective attribute such as "provides variable-sized fonts". It is not something like "must be identical to MS Office".
What planet do you live on? Back when we were bidding one of the x86 PCs to the army, we had to provide a word processor. The laundry list of specs for the word processor was for WP5.1. (This was back in the late 80's early 90s).
For example, we had wanted to bid using Word 5.0 (for DOS) as the word processor. But the laundry list had "Must have a 'Show Codes'" mode. Unfortunately, Word didn't have such an item.
So, no the specs don't say "must be identical to MS Office", they just give specs that read off the laundry list of MS Office features, and if you don't have it, tough. It essentially says, must be identical without explicity stating that.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
This sort of contract has the been the bread and butter for the gov't services groups of all the large consulting houses for some time. Their sale force uses their contacts throughout the Pentagon to suggest these programs to the appropriate Admiral/General, who then says "That sound's good! Do it." with out talking to the people in the trenches who actually have to deal with the results.
My best friend works for the Navy as a SysAdmin, and he has nothing good to say about this program. It is working out to cost the Navy MORE than it otherwise would at his facility, because they have lots of specialized apps for their work, and EDS is only under contract to support a certain list of apps, and guess what, the special apps are not on the list. ( AutoCAD is one of the apps not on the list, which is odd, considering all to the engineering design the Navy does.). So the Navy has to pay EXTRA to keep those apps available.
Bottom line, this proposal to the OMB would not have the huge impact is seems it might, because the DoD is only marginally subject to OMB procurement procedures. Each of the service branches, as well as the office of the secretary have their own procurement procedures. So, until they optimize the procurement so that the OMB really is over all the Cabinet departments, this will only get part of the way there.
There is no reason the support could not be provided by a separate contract. Indeed it would be advantageous to the government to have it bid on separately, so that even MS Office support could be provided at less expense by a 3rd party. In only rare cases do you need MS high-level support (and good luck getting it anyway), and for those the government (or the 3rd party) can pay MS standard per-incident rates and still save money.