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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."
The people who have to deal with them know exactly how to use them to best result. In a former life when I was working for a government agency and was responsible for ordering computer hardware/software, I had to know how to file an RFQ (request for quotation) so that only the single vendor I had already picked as the best source could meet the requirements. It's not hard to do. If they want to use specific products because it's what they're used to, or think they're the best solution, they will use them.
The way to change this is to rewrite the purchasing policies so that they have clear definitions that aren't subject to interpretation, with no loopholes. But it IS government we're talking about here, remember?
"Suppose you were an idiot..... And suppose you were a member of Congress... But I repeate myself."
Many people, myself included, believe that for many governmental application, open source products are superior to closed source products, particularly those sold by Microsoft. I won't dive deeply into the arguments, but governments require open access to their data for all time; they shouldn't be forced to buy expensive upgrades from a single vendor because the vendor has decided to change the file format.
That being said, we're not going to convince members of governments on technical merits. They don't understand technical issues, nor should they. We charge them with governing the people, not with hacking around with e-mail servers. In order to talk to these people, we have to speak a language that they understand; the language of laws and regulations.
If we want the government to do something for us, we have to speak their language.
a way to pressure governmental agencies to switch to software other than that from Microsoft
Isn't "pressuring people to do things" what got MS into trouble in the first place? Do you want linux pressured onto people? Wouldn't you rather they made the choice on better terms?
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Well since you don't buy Free Software from the developers, you only need to determine if the people selling you support, and/or the CDs are criminals, so there is no problem.
Debian: GNU/Linux done the Linux way
It is the government's duty, in the case of anti-trust violations, to take action which will restore competition to the effected market. The easiest way to do this is to support companies that compete with the monopolist. Personally, I don't care if they pick Apple, Sun, Linux, BSD, or even FreeDOS, as long as they don't pick Microsoft, a convicted monopolist. That is, after all, exactly what the law states, and any of those choices would acheive the desired result of increasing/enabling competition in those markets which Microsoft currently dominates.
Also, technical merits? Are you honestly contending that there is a situation where you would choose a Microsoft solution over everything else based solely on technical merits? What technical merits would you base that decision on? In this situation (government IT) having an open document standard accesible in perpetuity has much more technical merit than being able to edit the current flavor of MS Word document format without breaking obscure and seldom used formatting, to counter the most common example. Hell, just accesible in perpetuity would be fine, but Microsoft has proven unwilling to provide even that. It is not the governments responsibility to accept information in whatever form the public wants to give it to them, it is the publics responsibility to shoehorn that information into the form the government accepts. That is why I have to use a form 1040 instead of just jotting down my income and number of dependents on any old scrap of paper, or just sending them a copy of the spreadsheet I use to keep track of my finances.
Regardless, technical merits are NEVER the sole basis of such a decision, and often they are not even a particularly important part. Costs are a big part of it, as are, especially in a government situation, political considerations such as supporting local businesses and thus maintaining the local economy. Momentum also plays a part, as organizations are more likely to simply upgrade what they have, for better or worse, than start over from scratch, or if they are starting from scratch they will generally choose a technology which an important member of the organization is most familiar with, whether or not that person is actually qualified to be making such a recomendation.
I feel that there are any number of vendors, both open and closed source, who are better suited to the requirements of government IT than Microsoft; namely security and long term information access. This law is simply the kick in the pants necessary to force this particular body to consider those other solutions. Naturally, I would prefer that my government choose open source solutions, as I believe that investment in open source maximizes the value of my tax dollars, but other choices would certainly be acceptable.
Drunk drivers should not drive busses, embezzlers should not be appointed to the treasury, child pornographers should not work at schools, and abusive monopolists should not be rewarded with government contracts.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Well, yes, just as in the 50s and 60s there were people who wanted laws against murder enforced but didn't think much of laws imposing, say, segregation. I don't think the implication of hypocrisy is valid.