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Portugal's Vortalgate — No Microsoft, No Bidding

Posted by kdawson on from the bad-for-bidders-and-for-bidness dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Companies using software other than Microsoft's are unable to bid at many Portuguese public tenders. This is due to the use of Silverlight 2.0 technology by the company, Vortal, contracted to build the e-procurement portal. This situation has triggered a complaint to the European Commission by the Portuguese Open Source Business Association; the case is unofficially known in Portugal as 'Vortalgate.'"

1 of 312 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Kdawson by V!NCENT · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Point is: MS is dominant. MS is proprietary. In other words that means that Microsoft uses it's dominant position to release some stuff that nobody is allowed to know how it works, and so competition is doomed. That means anti-trust. That means that the EU needs to start kicking some serious ass along the lines of "Microsoft, open up the specs, release without a license, stick to your specs, otherwise you are no longer allowed to release new software on the EU. No fines. No multi-billion dollar payments. Just do it or lose the right to sell anything untill you comply.

    It. Must. Be. Like. That. And. No. Other. Way.

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