Oregon's Open Source Bill Passess Committee Hearing

Cooper Stevenson writes "Oregon's Open Source Bill HB 2892 made it through the first General Government Committee hearing and is now scheduled for a work session. From here the committee will vote on the bill and, if it passes, will go to the Ways and Means Committee where it is expected to pass to the House floor for a vote. You may find the audio feed and the opponent's written testimony here. We are scanning and posting written testimony (especially the proponents for which there is plenty) as quickly as possible so check back in periodically."

Comments

I'd be suprised if it passed

[bigsexyjoe]

Oregon's House Bill HB-2892, if passed into law, is projected to save the Oregon taxpayer upwards of 20-30 million in savings annually.

Translation: Software companies are going to lose money if it passes and will lobby like hell against it. It would be a horrible precendent for the software companies if this passes.

Remember: If it sounds to good to be true, it probably is.

What a weak argument

[Klaruz]

Open Source Software Procurement Preferences
A small number of state legislators have introduced legislation that would require state governments to consider open source software when acquiring new software, and provide justification for using proprietary software products, including Microsoft's. Proposed legislation in Oregon (House Bill 2892) and Texas (Senate Bill 1579) seeks to establish a procurement bias for open source software, which would hurt competition and innovation in the software industry. Similar legislation will likely be introduced in other states as well. For more information on the procurement debate, visit the Initiative for Software Choice.

How is this going to hurt competition and innovation? If anything it'll help.

Before the bill:

"We bought software by microsoft, if it doesn't work, too bad."

After:
"We went with closed microsoft product xxxx because opensource product yyyy isn't good enough in the following areas."

Or:
"We went with open source product xxxx because microsoft product yyyy isn't good enough in the following areas."

Seems like the last point would encourage competition and innovation on microsoft or any other orginizations part.