Quebec Govt Sued For Ignoring Free Software

Mathieu Lutfy writes "The CBC is reporting that 'Quebec's open-source software association is suing the provincial government, saying it is giving preferential treatment to Microsoft Corp. by buying the company's products rather than using free alternatives. ... Government buyers are using an exception in provincial law that allows them to buy directly from a proprietary vendor when there are no options available, but Facil said that loophole is being abused and goes against other legal requirements to buy locally.' The group also has a press release in English."

Comments

Don't waste my money!

[rossz]

Ok, I'm not Canadian, but this applies to everyone when their local government is pissing away money for no good reason.

It's one thing for a business to choose the more expensive option, the people making the choices must eventually answer to their stockholders. Well, as a voter, I'm a stockholder in my country. Wasting truckloads of money for no good reason means I'm going to vote your ass off the board of directors.

Most of the time, alternatives such as Openoffice.org are more than adequate for the job (and usually a better choice). Sometimes there are special needs which will allow for an exception, e.g. a large investment in Excel macros that are essential and very expensive to convert.

Local schools seem to be the worse offenders. They constantly bitch and moan about lack of funds, then piss away a pile of cash on a site license for Microsoft Office so they can teach their word processing course. Openoffice.org (and a few others) are perfect for the job. They are free and the cover everything necessary to learn word processing - which should be covering typing skills and how to lay out a well designed document - not how to use a specific product.

Re:Don't waste my money!

[rohan972]

From TFA: "A strategic Free Software utilization in public administration could create thousands of jobs as well as a significant decrease in software licensing costs. However, Quebec's public administration refuses to even consider and evaluate these options."

If it is true they haven't even evaluated the other options the complaint is valid.

Re:Don't waste my money!

[erikdalen]

Well, IMO amateurs shouldn't be sysadmins.

Re:Don't waste my money!

[Bert64]

Any third party app installed on windows needs to be updated seperately... A linux distro on the other hand will typically supply all the apps you're going to require and update them al centrally.

As for all the myriad of possible distros, you just standardise on a single distro across the board and use the apps supported by the distributor.
The problem of incompatible versions happens on windows too, and is often worse, even microsoft apps can have incompatibilities with each other and as soon as you throw third party apps into the mix the problem gets much worse, but the apps supported as part of a linux distro will typically be tested fairly well together. Also since the linux apps are far more likely to use documented formats, the chance of third party apps working with them is higher too.

Re:Don't waste my money!

[minsk]

Unfortunately, many professionals shouldn't be sysadmins either.

One side of the coin is that folks with honest training and experience can sift through a wide range of possible technologies, then find and properly maintain the best one for the situation. The other is that the amateurs have a motivation for easy, so seem less likely to dig themselves incredible, embarrassing, money-sucking pits...

And this is government. If you're not cynical about the kind of professionals they hire, you're not paying attention :)

Re:Don't waste my money!

[minsk]

In my reading, the complaint talks about opening up bidding so that local companies can offer solutions. Maybe those would be F/OSS, maybe they would be Microsoft, more likely they would be a mixture. Really doubt anyone thought opening bidding would create openings at the _government_ office... at the local VARs seems a more likely possibility.

Re:Tech support.

[Max Littlemore]

Most large organisations including government provide 90% of their own tech support. Microsoft, in practice, provides none. At least it's like that where I am. The only "support" they provide is helping to ensure all of the machines are licensed properly.

So if a local government can't figure out that they can take save the $25 million they have spent on licenses by training their IT staff or supporting local business, they really aren't intelligent enough to be working for the government.

That whole support argument is bullshit, as is the TCO argument that gets bandied about.