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Portugal's Vortalgate — No Microsoft, No Bidding
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.'"
Yeah, because no one here is biased...
Extreme Programming - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Developers
> This is due to the use of Silverlight 2.0 technology by the company,
> Vortal, contracted to build the e-procurement portal.
I'm sure the bid said, "accessible via any computer with a web browser"? Or "apps available under x, y, and z OS's", or some such?
Quite frankly, although Microsoft getting people dependent on their proprietary APIs is a common business model, this isn't really Microsoft's fault, but Vortal's. Or the doof who put together the RFQ for this particular service for not being more specific about what kinds of computers can access it.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Silverlight is a wonderful programming platform, easier and more elegant than flash will ever be
That's nice and everything, but anyone using Flash OR Silverlight as a required part of a tendering process needs to be put down for the good of humanity. What could possibly have been going on in their tiny little minds? Responding to this insanity by babbling about Silverlight being better than Flash is absurd.
Silverlight comes along offering nothing new but plenty of obstacles and lock-out of end user browsers, requiring active download of a plug-in, and yet, there are bozos out there willing to commit paying customers and their websites to an endless, costly, non-standard nightmare in exchange for nothing! You can't make shit like that up, it's real.
...and when Microsoft has wrapped your entire world into a compendium of proprietary digital glop with no hope of improvement, only then will you realize how bad it can be.
...again.
Most of the stuff on
It's not about the quality of Silverlight, if you didn't get it go read again.
People with other Operating Systems other than those provided by Microsoft are not able to access a governmental website, that is what is being discussed.
Mono will always be behind and you can count on MacOSX support being dropped quite soon. Using Silverlight now is no different than what using activeX meant in the past.
And even better, if you don't work for Novell, and use it via Mono, you might even get sued! Yay for patent-encumbered software that relies on the goodwill of a multiple-conviction monopolist.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I agree Silverlight is probably better than Flash, but that's setting a rather low bar.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
Yes.
Sadly, we have yet to understand the full repercussions of Suffixgate, but I suspect they will be with us for a long, long time.
Breakfast served all day!
Silverlight 2.0 versus Moonlight 1.0 which does not implement any 2.0 features... maybe..?
Well, suppose you're selling GNU/Linux desktops. Now to make your bidding for a public tender in Portugal you need to NOT USE your own dogfood?
You need to buy from your competitors in order to compete against them?
Seriously folks, this is a REAL issue (plus, this mess was paid with my taxes, I'll have to demand a refund).
... I must object to these allegations in the strongest terms. Our QA department went above and beyond the call of duty to ensure compatibility, by testing our software not only on HP and Dell computers, but also Lenovo, Sony, and Acer. Whatever objections these critics have are clearly spurious.
Speaking as a portuguese, I can tell you that the whole "-gate" postfixing is senseless.. It just doesn't carry weight around here as it does over there. I'd wager the submitter knew this, but just added it anyway because a) he/she is "close" to the matter (probably belongs to the group who's denouncing the situation) and therefore takes this issue seriously and b) wanted to exarcerbate the impact of this news piece by way of a commonly used word-gimmick.. After all, your own media abuses the term whenever some sort of scandal crops up.
As far as "-gate" scandals go, there's another one a LOT more prone to getting that tag (allegations of impropriety or downright corruption that may implicate the current Prime-Minister regarding the licensing of a big real estate development when he was Minister for the Environment -- and therefore had specific oversight on these matters), a huge mess. And even THAT didn't get tagged "Freeport-gate". It would mean nothing to the majority of people here, many would probably not even get the historical reference (even with "Frost vs Nixon").
To be honest, and again speaking as a portuguese citizen, this is the first I'm hearing about it (and the first time I've heard about this particular portal, to be frank). As far as I can tell, this relates to a governmental portal for job procurement/hiring.. The "bidding" here either relates to companies wishing to offer services, applying for consulting positions (getting contracts) or for people trying to get employed.
It's obviously a Bad Thing(TM) but I doubt it was done intentionally and even less that MS had anything to do with it. Not that MS is above this, of course, and they do enjoy a cosy relationship with Portugal and portuguese institutions (we're a small country and they're a BIIIIG corporation -- it's "good business" to keep a major player/investor like that happy, however it may sicken me that we need it) but as other posters have pointed out, this is Vortal's own doing.
Silverlight is a new technology and Microsoft has been investing heavily around here.. I personally know many aspiring developers (as well as fully-fledged software engineers) who genuinely think Microsoft is God's gift to software engineering.. And it doesn't help that MS does indeed get some things right now and then. :)
The way I see it, whomever made the decision to use SL (and the ensuing IE-optimized html code -- even the places you can go without Silverlight installed really suck with Firefox, the usability/interoperability is seriously broken) didn't think things through, or honestly felt that Silverlight is the Next Big Thing(TM), and that going with it would be a clever move.
It's another reflection of the worst thing that Microsoft has managed to instill into so many people, often through the deals they broker with education institutions: the mono-culture mentality.. That only Windows matters (in fact, for nearly all non-CS students, Windows is pretty much IT, and even Apple has only recently begun to show up on their mental map). That as long as you develop for THEIR platform and use their technologies, you'll reach that huge percentage of users, the magic Windows OS desktop-share.. And that the rest basically don't matter. It's so sad seeing this happen in the very places that used to be all about inclusion, early adoption of ALL technologies and diversity.
The submitter over-dramatized the impact that this is having over here, but I'm glad that the complaint went through and hope they can coax the European Courts to issue a legally binding EU-wide mandate on interoperability.
And by the time we get Moonlight 2.0, Silverlight will be 3.0. You'd almost think they were doing it on purpose...
No, the HUNDREDS of other people in this discussion pointing out that Moonlight is trailing Silverlight feature-wise and that Silverlight 2.0 code CAN NOT run on Moonlight currently, have not forgotten Moonlight.
Why use any proprietary system which reaches 70% of the people when you can use Standards and reach 100% of the people? I fault the idiots who can't recognize the trap this is.
The other possibility is the people who spec this system are too young to recall how bad it was under the heyday of the Microsoft Dictatorship. Development stalled, bugs went unpatched, exploits soared, functionality went down, costs went up, better technologies died etc. Now, the younger generation doesn't believe you when you refer to Microsoft as the Evil Overlord. It's just another vendor now.
I guess we have come a long way.
Most of the stuff on
And sliverlight runs under what broswers? It will run under IE 5.5 right? Why not just demand all your users get Firefox 3/Opera/Safari 4 and write cutting edge CSS3 pages with XML and SVG for all those cool effects. The only browser that's broken is IE. Yet every body jumps to the "microsoft only" solution as the savior to the problem??? Why???