Slashdot Mirror
Dutch Gov't Doubles Back On Open-Source Goals
An anonymous reader writes "Despite a 2002 unanimous vote by the Dutch parliament to prefer open standards and open source, exclusive negotiations with Microsoft were started. MPs have started asking questions already, but will add some more now that a Dutch journalist discovered that the deal will cripple the open source ambitions. The deal not only covers desktop software, but lets Microsoft deliver server software and support as well. MPs are outraged, and the EU may investigate why no mandatory public bid was started. In an open letter to the government, public organizations and open source companies like Novell raise hell. How can you ever fight bureaucrats?"
MPs are outraged, and the EU may investigate why no mandatory public bid was started.
nothing has been paid yet and an enquiry will be done, so let's avoid being indignated and be constructive against such practices...
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Throw a bucket of slurry over them
I was going to say 'steal their brains' but that won't work either.
never keeps his promises....
:)
anyhow, nothing has been done yet, so let's not be too quick on judgements...
though I wonder why they did this.... licking heels of american companies hasn't helped us the last time (Joint Strike Fighter, anyone?)
And, yes, I'm from holland
I guess we know what this means, that for some people at least all the talk about using open source and open standards was just a play to squeeze Microsoft.
And remember kids: Never trust a computer you can actually lift.
To prevent misunderstandings: this is about the continuation of agreements to which many users feel compelled to on the short term; this does not change the fact that on mid and long term, the alternative of open source software receives all attention.
Don't know about there, but here the bureaucrats (did I get the spelling right?) have an upper hand over politicians. Politicians are there in the office just for few years - bureaucrats are there for decades. And bureaucrats have more technical knowledge than politicians (at least here).
Kill them.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
it's double-dutch!
I never understood this.
Does "Dutch" refer to Holland-related stuff, Netherlands-related stuff, or both?
As of now I have no doubt whatsoever that Microsoft is excessively bribing the deciders in the european political open source and software patent discussion. Simple and flat out. Deciders that don't have the haziest of concepts of what software and open source is about get invited to sessions with "software-experts" on 100 percent MS payroll, taking all their crap for granted. And most certainly later on cut a deal on consulting or for holding a keynote or something other.
The irish EU presidency saw the up to then most extreme case, with the president taking a 180 turn of the decision the EU-parlament had issued not longer than a half a year earlyer on software patents.
We are about to see more of this.
I very much welcome the EU officials looking into this and (hopefully) preparing appropriate measures of dealing with flat-out violations of law like this one.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
How can you ever fight bureaucrats?
Castration for Salvation...
Is best alluded to by this line from a movie: "Bullets! My only weakness! How did you know.... *falls over*"
Is the most corrupt one in many many years...
I hope that both the related ministers and MS executives get a big bucked of shit over themselfs.
After that a long jail sentence...
Thank you lord bill for more words of wisdom to put in the sacred documents.
the "monks of bill(tm)" will faithfully document the teachings of the great one and spread it far and wide for all to enjoy and be required to read as per their signing over their soul in the EULA they hath clicked on.
the time to harvest those that have unknowingly joined is almost at hand!
we are prepared oh great bill. please give us guidance here on your holiest of communication boards where we fight evil that is known as linux.
Oh may ah may atrium!
f.u?
Last time I post first thing after getting up!
Bomb in the mail,
Bomb, bomb, bomb,
Bomb in the mail.
When the Courts are backed up and so are the Jails,
When Justice fails,
Bomb in the mail.
English is almost as much of an PITA as dutch...
anyhoo, dutch refers to the old word that was used for the dutch language, 'duits'. Which is in effect now used for the german language...
To the point: I've created an translation of BOF's open letter. Its not perfect, so please send corrections to bartwiegmans@gmail.com
It's located at home.kabelfoon.nl/~bwiegm/index.html
that its not what you know but who you know.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
Another day, another lie, it's the political way.
Another day, another bribe, it's the Microsoft way.
Same as always, may as well change all the comments to "Move along, nothing to see here".
Ok, so which would you rather have?
They stay with MS for the time being, spend some extra money, and keep applying those patches?
Or they switch all everything over right now, and everything comes crashing down because the sysadmins are not competent with the new software?
I think a gradual switch is definitely preferable. This seems to be exactly what is happening (the text clearly states that OSS remains the goal for the long term).
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
No, the Dutch are a bigger PITA as they now think they rule the usenet.
Oh, holy A.C., thank you for thy fine words filled with heavenly wisdom, for our poor souls can now be saved.
STFU
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
IMHO you fight bureaucrats with bureaucrats. This is why oppositions parties are useful. I bet most of the outraged MP's are the MP's from the opposition parties. (Given that the opposition parties are promoting OSS for a few years.) They are the ones that will question what happened here and will raise hell too.
- Save a tree, eat more woodpeckers
that people are noticing Microsoft's business tactics and countering them.
Open source asside, this is not legal. The justice department can not proceed to purchase windows+office for every other govt department. And they have to follow proceedure open tender procedure, esp with such a large purchase. People should lose there jobs over this, if you break one law and let it pass whats to stop government breaking laws again.
Mr Ballmer, please create an account before posting again. Thankyou.
... hem ... with guns ?
What does it mean, "appended to the end of comments you post"
The ombudsman of who deals with that area is a good place to start. Writting letters to your local member of parliament. Organising others to write letters to their local member of parliament. Writting letters to newspapers in your country. I'm sure others can think of more. :)
Not all conservatives are stupid,
but it is true that most stupid people are conservative.
- Hume
... competition in the market place?
... again...
Is anyone keep a record of how many laws MS breaks and how many anti-trust lawsuits they lost?
I believe that is what the real issue is all about, whether or not MS is up to no good... again. And it does put politicians and buracrats under suspect
At some point the score has to become overwelming enough for the open source efforts to simply be enable to ignore those who have proven themselves dishonest in the market place.
I suspect there is alot yet to be uncovered about MS methodologies and business practices.
move along :-(
This same stuff occurs here in the USA.
Maybe some journalists could bring lights on lobby activities of Jan Muhlfeit, CEO of Microsoft Czech and Microsoft Vice President for Europe. Mr. Muhlfeit currently does a "free advisor" to Czech Prime Minister Stanislav Gross. Guess the motives about it: Gross's party wasted billions of CZK for "Internet To Schools" program, now installed a *big* number of defunct Windows zombies computers ready for use by spammers over the world.
There you are, staring at me again.
Microsoft needs non-public backroom agreements in order to get their software accepted. Plus some loose money here and there (a la Ed Black and the CCIA) always seems to help Microsoft get their software in place.
Mod this up +1 Insightful!!
Mod this up +1 Informative!!
The real question is why should these higher up people decide on what they should run. Should that be the policy of the IT department. Just as long as they meet the compatibility standard. Why should it make a difference is someone is Using Linux while someone else is using windows?
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Has anyone else experienced problems with MSN Messenger today? It suddenly rejects my password...
...fire them!
Dutchmen just can't say no to a towelhead
1) People who are intolerant of other peoples' cultures,
2) and the Dutch.
The job of government is to use the right tool for the job.
If that tool is Microsoft software, thats fine.
What is needed, however, is an insistance on Open Standards whenever possible (for example, I doubt you will find a police dispatch system built around Open Standards).
And then have a competitive tender process.
If Open Source can show a better outcome than Microsoft software, it should be used. But if Microsoft software is the better alternative, use it.
This is what democratic rights are for....
Are you suggesting your democratic rights are less effective than those of the Dutch?
'Cause you know, I would never even imply that. :P
As annoying as it is it's kind of a back-handed compliment to OSS. MSFT has to bribe people to use their software. HAHAHAHA! Loooossssseeerrrrsssss.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
With the social problems which are the main staple of daily life after the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh by a moslem fundamentalist things like these (MS licensing) will be overlooked as all eyes are just focused on the issue of safety and terrorism and the bumbling of ministers remkes and donner (justice and state).
A stern, candid critic or adviser.
The political system is, in its way of making decisions, very far from the way you makes decisions in IT departments, small and big (there is of course a certain political influence even here). But for politicians it is not about having the most efficient system. It doesn't matter if it is expensive as long as you have control and can avoid scandals. MS offers exactly the kind of control that politicians like. With MS they talk to people in suits that can be manipulated economically. This is preferable to Idealist.
The good thing is that their fear of scandal can be used and that is what have happened, recently. The politicians worst nightmare is to look like a crafty bureaucrat and therefore they actually respond to the public pointing out the inconsistency of their arguments. We will see lots of this kind of things in the near future and that is a good thing. This whole slashdot story is about somebody trying to sneak MS in the backdoor. Five years ago nobody would have noticed.
In many respects, it is safe to say the only good government is a deadlocked government. That is why Americans could say they had one of the world's better governments for a long time. That is, until one of the parties monopolized the voting-machines "business". The rest is history...
This also goes to show how little most people actually care about stuff like this. Aside from here, I don't think us Dutch will get any media coverage about this issue...
In case someone is interested, I was bored and translated the open letter. The [...] remarks are translation notes added by me. I did it pretty quickly so there are probably quite a few spelling and other mistakes. You have been warned.
To:
Prime-Minister Balkenende
Ministry of General Affairs
PO box 20001
2500 EA the Hague
fax 070-3564683
Minister De Graaf
Ministry of Internal Affairs and Kingdomsrelations
PO box 20011
2500 EA the Hague
fax 070-3639153
Minister Brinkhorst
Ministry of Economic Affairs
PO box 20101
2500 EC the Hague
Transcripts to:
Permanent commision for Economic Affairs
Second chamber of the States-General [Dutch Parliament]
PO box 20018
2500 EA the Hague
fax 070-3183439
Permanent commision for Internal Affairs and Kingdomsrelations
Second chamber of the States-General [Dutch Parliament]
PO box 20018
2500 EA the Hague
fax 070-3183444
Send by fax and lettermail.
Amsterdam, 10th of december 2004
Subject: state government[literaly the kingdoms' government in Dutch] contract with Microsoft
Very honored mister Balkenende, de Graaf, Brinkhorst,
The Automationguide of Friday 3rd of december reported that the state government and some muncipalities want to close an exclusive contract worth 147 milion Euro and a term of five years with Microsoft. In the realization thereof no public bidding took place.
Undersigned organisations are worried about this intention and want to make you aware of the negative effects that such a contract has on the software market and the climate of inovation in the Netherlands. Likewise such a contract is contrary to the by the Cabinet stipulated policy regarding the use of open standards and open source at the government level and the aspiration to make the government less depandant of a single software supplier. On top of this Microsoft has been convicted by the European Commision because of poor interoperability of its server software.
On the 20th of november 2002 the Second chamber spoke out unanimously for the motion [a proposal by the Parliament to the government] Vendrik in which the Government was asked to counteract concentrations in the software market, to make sure that in 2006 all sofware used by the public sector adheres to open standards and to "actively stimulate the spreading and development of software with open sourcecode (open source software) in the public sector and formulate concrete and ambitious goals for this".
The ministries of BZK [internal affairs] and EZ [economic affairs] have set up the programme Open Standards and Open Source Software (OSOSS) to stimulate government organizations in a wide sense to use open standards in their ICT-applications. Moreover the programme Purchasing Taskasignment (PIT) has set up a ICT-purchasestrategy for the state government in which the following starting points have been included: guaranteeing of interoperability and the avoidance and where necesary breaking of vendor lock-in.
Undersigned organizations are of the opinion that the closing of such a contract with Microsoft will to the locking of the door in the coming five years with regards to the application of open standards, free software and open source software. The now held contract negotiations are squarly oposed to the motion Vendrik and undermine the positive results of the OSOSS programme. On top of this the carefully formulated targets of the PIT are being bypassed.
Undersigned organizations call on the Cabinet to take in take in hand the usage of open standards, free software and open source software seriously and ambitiously. Meanwhile there are sufficient initiatives within the government that proof that such software kan offer many advantages on the areas of interoperability, security and costs.
In the opinion of the undersigned a contract of s
Ask the Iraqis, I guess. If you aren't willing to go to such extremes, either infiltrate them or put forward a genuinely and observably superior alternative.
The OSS movement needs to win people over, not fight them
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
Here in Russia we do have similiar problems. Some time a go, Linux was chosen for schools in Volgograd city. Now Microsoft boasts of making them swith back (it's in Russian, I was unable to find any non-automatic translation of that page). The obvious reason for this decision is that some local official was dreaming of Great Happy New Year and Microsoft helped him with this dream. Financially.
Vendors have "relationships" with buyers in companies. They wine 'em, dine 'em, hassle 'em, etc. That's what they do. It's ALL they do. They try to do this in secret. Why let the competition know?
I remember when I was VP Engineering for a company, and I showed up one morning and there were all these drones from Compaq installing those idiotic "non-expandable crapola PC inside a 14" monitor" boxes that they used to sell. They were putting them EVERYWHERE.
Yup, you guessed it, the Controller just decided on his own to go buy about 50 of these useless things. Never asked anyone for advice, even though he had about 40 engineers including me he could have consulted, any one of which would have told him that his decision was nuts.
I got the Compaq sales guy alone in my office. I told him never to set foot in the building again. I told him Compaq would never, ever, sell us anything again as long as I was there. And they didn't. It didn't stop them from calling me. At the end, they were offering to rip every single PC out and put in some other hunk of crap. for like $200/station.
But then we sold the whole company, so that was that.
They are currently knee-deep in MS contracts. When those expire, they can't just switch to something else on a whim, they have to be prepared. Switches like this are difficult, and need ot be planned out. The advantages are long-term, not short-term.
So given that you have a huge IT infrastrucutre that relies on MS, and your service and support contracts are expiring.. what do you do? You negotiate with microsoft for how to proceed.
An agreement to persue and prefer open source doesn't mean dropping the ball on everything you are currently doing.
Believing that any politicians were actually sincere about anything.
Anybody have a real TCO for X thousand desktops when using linux vs something else?
Are there any large originzations using a custom knoppix version, workstations without hard disks, and a network drive for each user's data?
Calling the UK "England" is quite similar, except many people who say it think that England really is all there is to the UK. This is different from "America" for the USA because "America" is just short for "United States of America" and few people think that the US comprises all of either North America or the Americas. Also note that while there is a place called "England" which is different from "the UK", there is no such place called "America" to be confused about.
This post written under Gentoo-linux with an SCO IP license.
Balkenende should
-stop preaching HIS norms & values
-learn from the mistake Bush is: don't get (and make other people) paranoid about a few nuts, thereby creating a scared society with even more nuts.
-dare to make rigorous changes even though they might really piss of some other people that are afraid of change
Contrary to what many here think, I believe that this is a good and reasonable decision. Right now they have an MS solution that is most likely near the end of life. They bought themselves a big discount and some time from MS by voicing their dissatisfaction and intent to look into open source so they might as well use it to provide a smooth transition while they wait for the opensource solution to come together and prove itself in the marketplace. I like Linux, and use it myself on the desktop when appropriate, but it still isn't a 100% solution and replacement for their desktop environment and it still hasn't proved itself in a comparable situation. Just think how the story would go if they tried to go to Linux prematurely and it failed and they had to go crawling back to MS. Can you imagine the press and the damage to Linux's reputation? This was by far the better thing for the Dutch, the better thing for Linux, and also a good thing for MS in the short term and gives them one last chance to prove their modern solution is superior to their previous generations and maybe good enough to take some of the reasons for a switch away. Given the progress on the desktop Linux front things might be alot different and more mature in two or three years and that OS and migration is the exposure that we want to give Linux. MS will also have a harder sell with Longhorn about that time. Just be patient and keep plugging along with development and testing and remember that when it comes to something this prominent and on this scale this we want to make a good first impression and not an embarrassing defeat.
This is not as much a technical issue as it is a legal one. Support contracts and legal indemnifications have been considered, and as far as I know, the Dutch government cannot just use Open Source software.
And don't forget the huge amount of data that has to be converted to [insert OSS-package here]. The ministry of internal affairs in the Netherlands still have their OSS pages available here (Dutch), so they are still backing the Open Source iniative.
The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.
Amazing how Microsoft can override parliamentary votes. No doubt they'll claim that they use Open Standards, and that they'll give the Dutch government a pile of papers containing what they say is the source code that will compile to the binaries that they provide.
Get your own free personal location tracker
It became entirely apparent to me just over a year ago that *real* F/L/OSS advocacy was needed in the Government arena - to help stop sh*t like this happening.
And if you think the proprietary vendors are going to stop Microsoft - you're living in a dream-world!
This is one of the reasons why we formed the Open Source Consortium in the UK, a coalition of almost 70 F/L/OSS pure-play companies to provide a vendor neutral voice representing the views of the community to government. The other main reson being to give them a deployment force which is not controlled by any of the proprietary vendors.
Of course, we were slated on slashdot just over a week ago. Interesting how you guys can whine about this kind of stuff happening, and then whine about your own kind coming together to try and stop it!
Anyway, if there are any of you out there interested in actually *doing* something about this, rather than inneffective whingeing on slashdot, you may like to consider joining us!
Oh, and you might like to consider funding FSF Europe as well - Georg and the guys are amongst the few front-line organisations we've got actually having an impact over here right now.
Or you can just get back to compaining how unfair it all is...
Open Source Consortium
www.opensourceconsortium.org
It's nice to see that cross-national EU procedures seem to be in place to monitor these kinds of worrying development. It shows that the EU is not (just) about bureaucracy and 'being ruled from Brussels' as my British friends like to put it, but actually an effective means to watch what all its member governments are doing.
--
Coolbeans! The Nuggets , SMS search engine -- text your questions, get your answers from the Web, now all across the UK.
I'd wonder if the whole negotiation was over price; the UK Register article seems to focus on price. If the discussions mainly centered on costs, using the philosophy of the open source movement (which focuses on practical goals for programs in their bid to speak to business) is sure to lose because serious proprietors including Microsoft are ready to lower their price to free to keep a competitor away ("lose no sale to Linux[sic]" is what I recall reading in a NYT article which quoted an internal Microsoft memo).
Discussing software freedom may be uncomfortable for some, but this issue reframes the debate on something no proprietor can deliver. This means raising an issue which the open source movement was designed not to raise and it means paying attention to the free software movement's central message of including ethics in one's pitch.
Digital Citizen
What makes me raise my eyebrows on occasion is the way that the Netherlands seems to be on a particularly anti-european or pro-american (depending on your viewpoint) bent in recent years. The Dutch military choosing the American Apache helicopter instead of the Eurocopter Tiger. The Dutch military choosing the american M-16 rifle for some reason that no one can quite fathom. The Dutch choosing to participate in the F-35 JSF fighter consortium which hasn't really brought them any benefits. The Dutch signing on to the Iraq war fiasco, which wasn't even very popular in Holland at the time. And now the great Microsoft deal of the century when just about every other country in the world, let alone Europe, is at least looking at Open Source alternatives.
There are probably some good business and political reasons behind this but more often than not, the Dutch decisions seem to me to some kind of attempt to deliberately put the Germans and the French at a distance. I can understand that in a way as Holland is smaller than those two and could fear being overruled by them, but it mostly comes across as the epitomy of the old saying "Cutting off one's nose to spite one's face", i.e. doing something on principle even though it has no benefit to one.
Sadly, a lot of stuff in the EU seems to happen like this where national self interest can torpedo some very good projects (and bad as well, to be fair).
...After all, those who buy Microsoft deserve exactly what they get. :)
--ern
don't know about everyone else - but I am sick and tired of hearing how these goverments choose open source and then they get a visit from the idiot balmer and suddenly they had a revelation and change their minds. what a bunch of crap - this definitely needs some sort of investigation - and yes I know the training is more in the short term but they will have kicked the microsoft lockin and will be forced to actually open standards. one word to the government officials involved is please look in the long term and not the short - microsoft is only concerned about the short term and filling their pockets with money.
(I gather) that they have had to pick up the pieces after migrations to Linux have failed...
What is lacking from MS is any indication at all of who the organisations or companies involved might have been.
Is there an example of a badly failed migration to be had?
Sometimes some of the fries make it west accross the "afsluitdijk" and cause havoc in Amsterdam before they are beaten up by the locals. If you ever see a fight in Amsterdam it is always a farmer from friesland or it close relative groningen.
Every country got parts it ain't proud off. Americans got the bible belt. The united kingdom got wales. Germany got all off germany and The Netherlands got friesland. We are still trying to convince them to start a war of independence.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
How can you ever fight bureaucrats?
With bullets.
In all seriousness. Jury nullification and a willingness to spill blood will prevent bureaucrats from fucking the people while hiding behind the auspices of government.
Will any politician really fuck the people over if it means that he'll have to look over his shoulder for the rest of his life?
I doubt it.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
This government is totally sh*t!!! They keep talking about we need to cut spending and save money otherwise we'll stay behind. Now they go and make 5 year deal with Microsoft. I mean if you want to save money then you're definetly at the wrong address to go with Microsoft.
Since then "Balkenende" has shown a complete lack of leadership skill. His party has tried to force through cuts in pension plans despire massive opposotiion from the unions, industry AND the goverments economic think tank. Massive demonstations have no effect EVEN a gigantic drop in the polls has no effect. Even in cases where both industry AND unions together without threath of strikes agree to compensate the cuts for the workers involved the goverment wants to outlaw this.
This is part of a much larger problem in europe. You see for all the talk about america and its two party system and the Bushes and Haliburtons there is one thing to remember. People are talking about the problems in america. Michael Moore does make his documenturies. There is no such thing in holland or for that matter the EU.
Whenever you hear about corruption/incompetence/complacency in america the exact same thing is happening in europe. Withone tiny little difference. Nobody is talking about it.
Basically what you got is corrupt system, not the kind of corruption you see in the movies with brown envolopes but a far deeper backroom deals going unquestioned for ever corruption of the mind. Most of the people involved wouldn't even be able to consider taking "hospitality" from MS as being corrupted. They live in their own world wich has been carefully drained of everyone who questions things.
If you want to see the idea. Examine "group think" on places like /.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
No, might be a good Ask Slashdot sometime.
Just a pity rumour has this contract (extension) is for 5 years...
So 5 years must be short term??
Thankfully our (Dutch) politicians are a little more Microsoft Resistant than the bureaucrats.
Still, the community will have to fight to prevent further lock down.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Wait a minute, does this mean the Dutch are going to actually BUY software? If so this is really big news for sure.
and you spend years trying to make it all work together.
I mean who wants the next 5 years supporting hand coded, bespoke vbscripts just to manage user lifecycle, software distribution, inventory and asset management, compliance, systems management and all the other things that are covered by systems software such as ZEN and DirXML.
So why not look to alternatives while you have a chance?
rgds
said that the devil shits dutchmen.
... by 'De automatiseringsgids', a Dutch weekly newsletter for IT professionals, put the people in favor and opposing this deal to a 51-49 percentile stand off. What is clear from this questionairre, however, is that people opposing it know much much better why they opposed it ; funding their opinions appropriately. People in favor of the deal played mostly stupid when they were asked the same thing.
I understand politicians are in the latter category, but it worries me that so many "IT professionals" are sticking their heads in the sand as well !
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
Hello,
Your command of English language is good and will get even better and easier with usage.
Permit me to suggest a rewording of one of your sentences for fluent clarity:
The most extreme case until this present one happened during the Irish EU presidency. The EU president took a 180 degree turn from the decision that the EU Parliament had issued on software patents only six months earlier.
Good luck with your language studies.
I am always amazed at how the Europeans and Euro-Americans can go on and on about how the people who live 100 kilometers away are of a different species, and then refer to ALL the native Americans as 'Indians'. Or how they can refer to all the people of South Asia as 'Indians', as if there were not ancient differences between the hundreds of tribes and cultures living in both places.
Maybe, just maybe, they've come to the conclusion that OSS isn't the best solution for the long term in this situation.
After all, it's not a fact that OSS is better - it's just some people's opinion. NOBODY KNOWS FOR SURE.
... the elctorate get the govemrnet they deserve.
In the Netherlands they decided that a populist, unexperienced "party" was a good choice while many sane people in th rest of Europe were rolling their eyes in disbelief.
Well, now you have the consequences.
Goverments had never governed (and they should not, IMHO) based on demonstrations or opinion polls. Goverments are suppossed to have a plan and they should try to implement it.
How from a clueless goverment elected by, pardon the battering, clueless people, you jump to your tirade about corruption, is baffling.
To say that corruption is swept under the carpet in Europe is ludicrous. Berlusconi in Italy just was half aquited on corruption charges, a close ally was sentenced to 9 years for mafia links. In Germany people close to Helmut Khol were sentenced for all kind of muddy dealings, in the UK politicians that fail to live to expections regularly have to resing and in some cases even go to jail.
Your ascertion is completely untrue and clueless, corruption is fought all around Europe.
Compare that with Ronald Reagan and his mob, breaking the law, and living to be hailed as heroes for doing so.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
For those not in the know, Flanders is the northern part of Belgium; it borders the Netherlands and its population speaks Dutch, though there are differences in pronunciation and idiom. The difference is smaller than the difference between British and American English.
This sig under construction. Please check back later.
You can't, which is exactly why leftist goverments and organizations like the UN are a complete and total joke.
With hot lead.
It's actually a good thing to kill politicans and bureaucrats, once in a while. Thomas Jefferson thought it ought to be done once per generation.
Hang on to your guns and don't be afraid to use them when the Nanny Government gets out of control.
Too much Law; not enough Order.
The answer is simple: forget about 'linux' vs 'windows' talk about a Dutch software vendor vs an American software vendor.
No Dutch linux vendor? Then talk about European vs American, or some entrepreneurial Dutch company can repackage the German SUSE.
Either that or MS bribed them.
Treehugger? Treehugger... Treehugger!
"How can you ever fight bureaucrats"
Easy, how much money do you have?
TruePunk | Games
I believe we need to start the Open Source Bribery Fund (OSBF) to level the playing field. After all, you will always have some corrupt decision-makers to deal with, and evening out the bribery between solutions would perhaps encourage them to think of the actual merits of each solution.
-- Fratz, human
Its easy for the legislature to fight the bureaucrats if they want to. There are several choices: 1) withhold their budgets until the right folks are fired or 2) decrease their budget by a factor (slightly larger than 1) times the amount of the M$ contract. The logic being if they have that kind of money to waste, they don't need that large of a budget in the first place. Then they can spend the difference on science. Scientists will in general find good things to do with money that would otherwise be wasted.
The hard part is resisting the bribery and other enticements.
a limited ability to stay focused on any particular issue and discuss it credibly at any length before one of its members gets the whole flock diverted onto a thread totally unrelated to the original post.
Is it really true that a slashdotter is just someone with an extremely limited attention span?
Anyway, I love the Dutch. Pieter Bleeker, the greatest ichthyologist ever was Dutch. I would love them more, but I went to Holland and got talked into buying a thousand dollars worth of tulips, which I dutifully planted, only to watch the squirrels in my yard dig up and eat every bulb I planted. I didn't see a single flower.
The EU Directives 93/36/EEC (Supplies) 92/50/EEC (Services) and 93/37/EEC (Works) require that where a single order or contract shall be greater than the relevant thresholds, or by aggregation of demand (orders or contracts for the same goods/services/works or of a similar nature) over a period of twelve months or intended contract period, shall be advertised first and in their most complete form via the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU).
For supplies and services the threshold is about 240,000 Euros. If they have not done this then you can find yourself in *big* trouble. There is a mechanism (The Compliance Directive) by which "aggrieved" suppliers can take whatever public body has not followed these procdures correctly to court and seek a judical review, with a range of remedies including potentially getting a contract overturned and damages.
Unless the Dutch goverment has been following the regulations closely they could find themselves in deep water, from either an "aggrieved" supplier or the Commission.
How do I know all this? Well I have the dubious privalege of working for a U.K. public sector employer (a.k.a. a University) and have to negociate this minefield of regulations on an almost daily basis. Why the hell should some branch of the Dutch goverment feel they should be excempt is what I want to know.
It's just as useless as the US government saying that something will cost "X billion over the next 10 years". Where did this little trick come from? Anyone with half a brain knows that a lot can happen in 10 years that can easily change that figure - making it anywhere from zero, to several times the originally stated amount.
Perhaps I'm missing the obvious, but what's an MP? Military Police is the only thing I'm coming up with, and that doesn't sound correct in context... Sorry, nothing really insightful to add. :)
fscking M$ bribing, that's the only defense against open source they have.
If Kerry was the answer, it must have been a stupid question.
The UN - The largest "political" cause of death.
I speak from experience. I was hired by my government to work on a database project. We used PHP and MySQL.
HOWEVER, we were required to keep compatibility with their "existing" (but not used at all) database. (Hint: This database software was already obsolete at the time, and was superseded by DB2)
Besides, the project was already advanced, and we had no permission to install new third-party libraries (i.e. for doing TEMPLATES).
The software ended up being cripped, slow, and buggy. I've heard they're hiring programmers who know PHP/MySQL to maintain the system.
So why didn't they adopt MySQL (or PostgreSQL) as their native source, and forget about compatibility with broken databases?
Oh, because they had spent HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS IN LICENSING a proprietary solution. We had to keep compatibility, so the idiot who paid would not have to be FIRED for spending useless money.
Bravo for the governments.
The open-source wheel is well-oiled, comes complete with all construction materials needed to reconstruct the wheels. May be missing a spoke, but its included with the wheel just in case. All one has to do is add labor to use the wheel.
The squeeky MS wheel apparently has plenty of grease slathered laviously by its sales munions. But the MS wheel has an occasional spokes missing of which would collapse when excessive tare weight is applied to its axle. It does not come with a comnplete set of spare spokes, not even nary a tire-patch.
Bureaucrats must be really porked up to the rind to choose this business model over the other.
You can download SuSe open enterprise server from Novell for free, or you can request it on a 5 DVD package (also for free, including free shipping).
How can you ever fight bureaucrats?
Fighting bureaucracy is like punching a marshmallow. All you'll do is wear yourself out.
Systems of people are self-motivating however. I'd suggest giving them a scant budget based on cheaper alternatives (like zero euros for software licenses for OS, office software after, say, 2 years) Then, if they really want what they perceive as advantages of MS software, they can take it out of their own hides (no new office furniture, turn down the thermostats, re-use toilet paper, etc.).
Oh, and a few mandates to require that public offices provide the public with information in free, standard open public formats.
If the responsible decision-makers still believe that MS software provides cheap and standard methods for churning through the public's business, then let them prove it by living it.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Some moron journalist cooked up a story 'bout 'secret negotiations' (ever seen a jounalist present @ negotiations?), and didn't bother to verify his story. As a result, every moron on the planet is picking up the story and making a fool of himself.
Truth is the Dutch government is about to dump Microsoft Enterprise Agremeents and is gonna save 'bout 40.000.000 euro/year, part of it to be invested in open source development. Compared to this, Paris and Munich is nickel and dime stuff!!!
not to mention that criminal Nixon, and the latest and greatest american idiot and crook, Bush.