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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?"
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).
well, in the irish case, it was probably easy - Microsoft: "Support software patents or we'll leave Ireland, costing hundreds to thousands of high-paid of jobs". Politicians treat "employment" as an important issue - they don't much care _what_ people are working at, so long as they're working and not causing trouble. Tell them "I don't care how many jobs Microsoft brought to Ireland, I for one would never work for such an unethical company" and they'll laugh in your face and call you a hippy idealist (I know from personal experience) - yet I also know at least a hundred Irish highly-qualified computer people who would never work for microsoft for exactly that reason.
So any time anyone chooses a MS product over an opern source product, it must be because of bribery and not because of some legit reason (like lack of training)?
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
Have been tried many times, it creates chaos. Take Iraq. You remove the Baath party and everything collapses.
Not to be cynical, but it seems what civilisation is all about is.. Bureaucracy. It is not like evolution or liberalism etc. has removed it. We have as much as the Romans did and even more.
However, I do not believe refering to the country as "Holland" is incorrect any more than refering to the USA as "America" is incorrect. It's common usage.
On quite a different scale however...
About country names: the Dutch call Germany "Duitsland", the Germans themselves call it "Deutschland". "Dutch" meaning "from Holland" is therefor quite remarkable. We Dutch call ourselves "Nederlanders" or "Hollanders" and our neigbours are named "Duitsers". When we Dutch people talk about Germans ("Germanen") we refer to a people that once lived in western Europe (Germanic tribe). Still get it?
In our national anthem however, we sing "ben ik van Duitschen bloed", literally "am I of Dutch blood", indicating that even to the Dutch it is not quite clear wether to be called "Dutch" is a good or a 'bad' thing. Since there is no real alternative to "Dutch" in English I have no objection.
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).
The government (anybody's government) is a huge bureaucratic organization that is comprised of people who primarily want stability. They want nothing to threaten their position, pension, and job security.
Given a choice of spending other people's money (your's, the taxpayer) or going with a group that has no formal organization that can take legal responsibility when systems break down, the bureaucrats will always chose buying the service from another large organization. That way they are protected. The fact that Linux Open Source is a better situation for the taxpayers and government information systems is secondary.
There are three ways to deal with this situation:
Pass laws requiring the use of open-source. This won't work because bureaucrats will always twist the law to fit their needs, which in this case is to 'cover their ass' when (not if) the information system breaks down.
Make Microsoft unaffordable Stop paying taxes in a big way so that the government doesn't have the money available to afford the Microsoft solution. This won't work because the government can use any amount violence to take your money from you, and because Microsoft can lower the initial offering price to almost nothing to secure the contract. This will work in developing countries, eventually, but not in the EU or USA.
Have open source so widely used that Microsoft can't link into the established framework This won't work because Microsoft will always allow free limited distribution of its product (by technically permitting unpaid copies to be made of Windows and Office) enough to keep itself being the defacto standard in use.
The only way that the open source community can win against Microsoft in government procurement contracts is to be so transparently better that the government buyers will be willing to overlook its stark disadvantages (to the bureaucrats) in order to have a greatly superior product.
This can't happen because great software is mostly the result of great individual programmers.
Microsoft has the funds to buy their work, talents, and focus for its exclusive use in Windows. The only way that Microsoft can fail here is if they refuse to pay their most highly productive 'superstar' programmers enough, or refuse to make the necessary effort to recruit them in the first place. Given that MS is run by super programmers (even if he is retired from actual coding) like Bill Gates, this too is unlikely.
The only way to beat Microsoft is convince them to hire mediocre executive leadership. This is the only way to beat any large powerful organization.