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Swiss Open Source Decision Going Microsoft's Way
hardsix writes "The recent legal wrangling between a group of open source supporters led by Red Hat against the Swiss government's decision to award an IT contract solely to Microsoft appears to be going Microsoft's way. A Swiss lawyer close to the case claims that a preliminary ruling has rejected the open source group's request to overturn the Microsoft contract however the case is still ongoing and there is still room for appeal. 'The Administrative Court hasn't made its final ruling yet but even if it finds in favor of Microsoft, there is still room for appeal. No matter what the ruling will be, an appeal will likely be filed to the Supreme Court, whose final word will have substantial significance in the future for public authorities with regards to computing services,' said Swiss legal firm BCCC AVOCATS. Open source supporters argue there has to be real political will for open source projects to succeed in the public sector."
If they look at the options and decide they still want Windows then let them buy Windows. The Windows platform does has a lot of advantages like a huge software library (especially well supported by commercial software), existing user familiarity, and the Office suite. If Red Hat isn't a good fit for their needs then where's the problem?
So sitting around on Slashdot all day posting about 'Teh Power of Open Source!!!' and silly little sayings like "First they ignore you. Then they fight you. Then you win." is no match for paid Microsoft lobbyists working every day to keep Microsoft's stranglehold on Governments and Businesses around the world?
I'm an OSS advocate. I use Ubuntu and openSUSE at home. My kids run Ubuntu.
However, if a decision was made to go with lesser closed-source software, than so be it. Move on.
Stunts such as this - bringing a lawsuit against the government - can only serve to harm the OSS movement.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
is very unfair and totally unacceptable that the Swiss Goverment by means of a legal court puts Microsoft in his top priority to enable his IT contract instead of taking OpenSource, on the other hand, MS fear and frustration of staying has the top software vendor is gonna cost him dearly
Did you bother to read the actual articles? The issue is the fact that a single vendor was handed a contract without competing bids.
So, no, they didn't 'look at the options'.
I've never been able to understand why these type of cases (ones that will be appealed no matter what) aren't taken directly to the highest courts. It's a waste of time and money.
Read the article. No public tendering process was made. The contract was handed straight to Microsoft. Therefore your comment is irrelevant.
.there is enough of everything for everyone.
The Swiss will find themselves up a creek with Microsoft and they will regret this decision. I so recall the days of fighting to understand the one and only explanation of some process that I had found on MSDN. That was only choice so I had to just grok it there. When I moved over to the Java world eons ago, I found every issue or question had dozens of answers and so no problem was unsolvable. The Swiss are entering a special circle of hell called: Sole Vendor...
The only reason Microsoft is the only option is because of the anti-competitive actions that are illegal. Microsoft should be forced to pay up for transitioning to alternative open source solutions. If there is a reason you can't move to a competitor or open source solution because of compatibility issue Microsoft should pay for it. Just because Microsoft Word has some feature unavailable in any competing product doesn't mean they should be excluded from the bidding process either. Features come and go. Microsoft lost clippy. OpenOffice has features Microsoft Office doesn't too. It works two-ways.
However, if a decision was made to go with lesser closed-source software, than so be it. Move on.
Stunts such as this - bringing a lawsuit against the government - can only serve to harm the OSS movement
Well, the problem is that things shouldn't work that way in here Switzerland. The government can NOT just "make a decision". According to the law, our government should open a bid and then select ONE solution among SEVERAL offers*.
Instead, the government didn't follow the normal procedure. They just went directly to Microsoft. This is not the correct lawful procedure. They can't make a decision, they have select it among several offers. (Even if in the end Microsoft is the the one picked up, due for example to a larger available library of commercially supported software).
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*: Some sectors (like the Swiss Army) are even required to always pick up at least TWO solutions from TWO different providers to avoid monopolies.
As an example, there was some unrest because both national Swiss army knife producer, Victorinox and Wenger merged (V bought W). And thus there's only 1 single monopoly left to provide one of the most widespread piece of cutlery in the Swiss army's equipment.
(Also back during the cold war when sourcing from a foreign producer, the army had always to find two neutral solutions : either one from either side of the curtain or from a neutral 3rd party. Never 2 from the same side, in order to keep balance and neutrality).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
It's like if they were building a new court house and instead of opening the contract to build it to multiple business just kept giving the contracts to one builder without even looking which they've used before.
I'm sure you can admit that doesn't sound fair (or even legal?) so why do you have such a problem when exactly the same thing is happening in the IT sector of government. They should have given all competitors a fair chance to bid even if they eventually decided to go with Microsoft anyway.
Die Bundespräsident, ist jetz die "H. Hans-Rudolf Merz" der Decider und der Käufer, einfach
Get lost, you are a corrupt astroturfer
Arschloch und gehen Bumsen sich an.
LOL!
You stupid fuck. You're too stupid to even know what those words mean.
Get off this board loser. You're too stupid to post, let alone trying to flame.
Buh bye dipshit!
It's interesting to sit through many multi-million RFP's and having a unix/linux background as I have when it gets right down to it. Red Hat and many of the unix/linux solutions typically are at a disadvantage when it comes to real integration and functionality in the the long run. Yes sometimes the come in under cost but over the long haul they are many times more costly. One thing we almost never really care in the decision making is what the platform is we decide on features,supportability and cost....what the OS is secondary to how we actually decide. unix/linux needs to simplify, stop fracturing itself. Try and get an enterprise solution to support linux and they may support one variant of linux and then the next solution provider comes in and only supports a different variant...guess what that only increases costs in the long run.
Open source supporters argue there has to be real political will for open source projects to succeed in the public sector
In the article, it was one person who said that--an official of the Munich LiMux project. I can see why one might want to just attribute it to "open source supporters" rather than associating with that ongoing clusterfuck of a mismanaged Linux migration.
Are you kidding or just ignorant or just like to see your name online with a good mod score? .... illuminating.
The Swiss "IT department", the B.I.T., is a fucking mess - they've not so long ago acquired the IT responsibilties for several other departments that used to run their own groups, and they're struggling big time. Revolving doors in many areas, lots of red tape and infighting and bureaucracy. They spend years on a project, flush it's dubious achievements down the shitter, and then start the same thing up again under a different acronym, on an all-too regular basis.
I'm pro-FOSS too, but perhaps it would have been a lot cheaper and actually more effective to just run with the MS solution instead of waste fuck knows how much money pissing around chasing other options. Even if the other options were better.
You should not over-estimate the organisational ability of the Swiss IT department. Public service IT in many countries would send many geeks running for the doors before the first paycheck - have you worked in one yet ?
The experience is
People don't realise before stepping in that efficiency and accomplishment are not yardsticks in public service - the main ideas seems to be to maintain status quo and the hierarchy, take credit for things you didn't do, and generally slow down projects so that not TOO much public money gets flushed down the shitter too fast. The last one I actually agree with, and my wife works in IT for a swiss govt dept and we rely on her income. She suffers from cognitive dissonance on a daily basis - the local recruitment companies advise many to get out of such places quickly if it doesn't feel like it's going to work early on, because the tendency is to be absorbed like the borg, and then a private company won't want anything to do with you afterwards.
The staff in question are well aware of the "world outside their doors" (the Swiss are very politically-conscious people, in my experience), and probably do know their options, but are often powerless to do much about it because the "man in charge" is a ignorant twat and his ear and pocket book are twisted by an unscrupulous salesman.
I thought it was reasonable to go with their own software, Isn't that why Microsoft purchased Switzerland in the first place?!
It doesn't matter what they where thinking they have to officially weigh the options in a bidding process. This is required by EU rules to mandate more competition with government projects.
Dyslexics are teople poo
They are also pointing out that if Windows from a non-compete bid isn't looking at ANY options AT ALL.
I knew what you would have to say would be nonsense your second sentence started, "Let's face it, most people..."
You sir are a plugbot for the Mono promoters.
French company Dassault Systemes has announced that Catia V6 will only be available for Windows, whereas their chief competitor Siemens NX has released it for linux, MacOS, and (still) some unix flavors. Did m$ pay off D'assault Systemes (as well)?