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Monopolists Dropped Off At The County Line
An anonymous reader submits: "In
this discussion thread members of PLUG (Phoenix Linux Users Group) may have come up with a way to pressure governmental agencies to switch to software other than that from Microsoft. County purchasing policies in Maricopa County, AZ prohibit purchasing from companies or persons convicted under state or federal antitrust statutes. At least one other county, Coconino, that I have checked so far has similar requirements. I think that it's time to make the government follow their own rules and stop spending any more money with criminals."
Note the second link's page doesn't actually say that the contractor must be debarred (prevented from providing services), but only that they may be debarred for a period of up to 3 years. I expect that someone would have to bring this up in a council meeting of some sort to actually have the action taken.
I don't think they said you couldn't purchase software from a criminal... I think they can't purchase goods from monopolists... I don't think there are a lot of open source developers out there that have been in trouble for owning a monopoly.
Your mammas flamebait.
I won't dive deeply into the arguments,
Don't worry, someone's done a pretty good job of describing the arguments for you...
Jay (=
A law set forth in a podunk Arizona county
Yeah, Maricopa is a podunk county. Not much there, considering it's the fourth largest county in the U.S. Oh, and it's the fastest gaining county in the U.S. as well.
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
Um, not true. The findings of fact and conclusions of law are entered. They have survived appeal. It is only the "sentencing" (the remedy) that is in dispute. Microsoft does indeed stand convicted of violations of the Sherman Act.
I think that it's time to make the government follow their own rules and stop spending any more money with criminals.
29 members of Congress have been accused of spousal abuse.
7 have been arrested for fraud.
19 have been accused of writing bad checks.
3 have been arrested for assault.
71 have credit reports so bad they can't qualify for a credit card.
14 have been arrested on drug-related charges.
8 have been arrested for shoplifting.
21 are current defendants in lawsuits.
And in 1998 alone, 84 were stopped for drunk driving, but released after they claimed Congressional immunity.
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Arthur Andersen LLP has a criminal conviction for obstruction of justice. That's much worse. As of last Saturday, they're out of the auditing business, because the SEC won't accept audits from a felon. All Andersen audit clients must find new auditors immediately. The company will probably go bankrupt. Criminal charges against individual executives may follow.
-J
The mainstream population can not use linux easily or efficiently. Windows is king of the hill right now, and by the time Linux gets as easy and efficient it will be just as big and ugly. Quit bashing or paycheck if it were not for the windows platform, nothing we did could reach millions of potential customers. It may not be great but it's the best we have!!
For you! Conviction or civil judgment finding a violation by any Person or any subsidiary or Affiliate of any Person under State or Federal Antitrust Statutes. If it is a large purchase, then MS would be an affiliate...
Sound like a whole lot of discussion and no action!
Here's my poor assed excuse for a letter to my County Councilmember (yes I do live in Maricopa County)
Councilman Fill in name here,
I am writing you in regards to the news that the Maricopa County Council is debating an Enterprise Agreement with Microsoft. However, I have read that according to Maricopa County Policies, Microsoft should be disqualified from any contractual business with the County. I would like to declare my support for Microsoft's disqualification.
According to MC1-902 DEBARMENT AND SUSPENSION OF CONTRACTORS, I read the following:
"B. The causes for Debarment or Suspension shall include, but are not limited to, the following:
2. Conviction of any Person or any subsidiary or affiliate of any Person under any statute of the Federal government, this State or its political subdivision or any other State for:
k. Any other offense indicating a lack of business integrity or business honesty which affects responsibility as a Contractor.
3. Conviction or civil judgment finding a violation by any Person or any subsidiary or affiliate of any Person under State or Federal Antitrust Statutes."
Microsoft, having been convicted of Federal Antitrust Statutes (penalties pending), clearly falls into the catagory described in part 3, and several court cases past and pending show a clear lack of integrity and business honesty as outlined in part 2. I cannot find that ANY government body would be willing to work with such contractors, let alone having rules against it and clearly ignoring those rules.
There are many alternatives to Microsofts products. Alternatives that have broken no laws, Federal or Local, are well supported and used by many large governments (Germany, Taiwan, et al). As a concerned voter in Chandler, I must point out that I cannot support criminal behavior and would hope that my County Council would see fit to do the same and ONLY consider alternatives as Microsoft is clearly unqualified to meet County requirements.
Thank You,
fill in your name here
If you can come up with a better one (and i'm sure you can cuz IANAL or much of else for that matter) then post it somewhere. Templates people, we need templates!
sig of the day: If wishes were horses poor men would ride - unknown
This isn't their fault - they are being asked to do an impossible job. They are being asked to guess which parts of a request are flexible and which are not. If I try to order a flat-panel LCD monitor, would a cheaper old-style CRT monitor be an acceptable aternative? That depends. Usually it probably would be, but in this case what if I ordered it specificly because the monitor would be sitting in a magenetic field. (which ends up making it impossible to calibrate a picture tube to display things in the right colors, or to get it to focus properly, as the electron beam in the tube gets bent off-target by the magnetic field.)
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.