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."

Comments

This isn't that outrageous

[Brian Gordon]

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?

Wait, So The Slashdot Strategy Isn't Working?

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Talk about bad losers!

[filesiteguy]

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.

Re:Talk about bad losers!

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

I'm an OSS advocate. I use Ubuntu and openSUSE at home. My kids run Ubuntu.

Really? You think you are an advocate?. More like user. If a large market segment decides to award a contact without even looking at OSS and you think it is fair, you are not much of an advocate. If a private company does that, we can leave it to the market to correct it. But the government is often the only provider of some services and all its vendors to be tied to a proprietary system where the vendor has to pay (Microsoft) to play is very very unfair. Further, being government, it is much less susceptible to market forces, with its ability to tax the population and pay the fees.

Ability to avail services of the government and to be a vendor to it without having to pay some third party fees is one of the fundamental rights of the people. How would you react if the government posts all the contract details in some private club with access restricted only to the members? Do you think it is fair?

Re:Talk about bad losers!

[Anonymous Coward]

So every time a new system is needed it should simply go to the lowest bidder? Should any consideration be given to the questions "will it work in our current environment", or "how much will it cost to operate/maintain over its useful life"? Since 80% of the cost of a system comes after you buy it you might want to rethink your position on this issue.

I guess you've never heard the expression "nothing is more expensive than a cheap tool..."

Re:Talk about bad losers!

[techno-vampire]

"I'm an OSS advocate and I practice what I preach. However, I'm not a fanatic or a bigot. If Windows is best for the job, then use it."

At least, that's how I read it. Of course, it's also my own position. I use Linux and I try to get other people to try it. If they're happy with Windows, or they try Linux and it doesn't suit them, that's OK with me. After all, it's their computer, not mine.

Re:They Did Not 'Look At The Options'

[Brian Gordon]

Yes I did. They decided that there would be no point to accepting bids because Microsoft was the only vendor who had a product that could meet their needs. They did look at the options, and they decided that Microsoft had no competitors who could meet their criteria.

Keep in mind that others do have different views than us and can make an informed decision without coming to the same conclusions...

Re:They Did Not 'Look At The Options'

[s73v3r]

If they didn't open it up to a public bidding process, then they have no idea what possible solutions were out there that could fit their needs.

Re:They Did Not 'Look At The Options'

[rastilin]

If they didn't open it up to a public bidding process, then they have no idea what possible solutions were out there that could fit their needs.

You're assuming the Government's IT department is completely ignorant of the world outside their doors; is it seriously plausible that they wouldn't know their options?"

Re:Freedom

[LingNoi]

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.

Re:They Did Not 'Look At The Options'

[dhavleak]

Well, it's not like the OSS guys are talking about options here.

Quote from TFA: "Open source supporters argue there has to be real political will for open source projects to succeed in the public sector."

That's political wrangling. Build a better product and the rest will follow. "Political will" is well, politics.

sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Why Not the Direct Route?

[amorsen]

Because the lower court does a lot of work which the higher court just has to review. You don't start over from scratch.

Re:They Did Not 'Look At The Options'

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather people just go with what gets the job done, and best meets their needs, the saving on cash arguement really doesn't hold anymore, since the Munchen debacle has shown quite clearly that Linux stands to cost considerably more than Windows.

You can pretend this is about keeping government spending in check, but it's a front, a thinly veiled one, at that - You're just intent on pushing the foss agenda - I know it, and you know it, the fact that you make it into an issue of open vs closed makes it painfully obvious.

Hint. You pay for open source software too, Between the license/support fees for Red Hat or Novell, or the man-hours and resources involved in tolling your own, or the man-hours involved in a mass-deployment of a free distribution, or the cost of OEM Windows, the cost in man-hours and lost productivity, the cost of retraining, maintenence, application compatibility, lost productivity resulting from it, etc all of these need to weighed against each other, and it's something the FOSS side seems to blind to - either none of these exist, or it's MS FUD, it's all about pushing an agenda, not using the best tool for the job, not saving government spending, not anything that is, frankly, important. And it's a damn shame