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Free Software Wins Court Battle in Quebec
courteaudotbiz writes "In a court battle in the province of Quebec, Canada, initiated more than two years ago, free software activists Savoir Faire Linux (translated 'Linux know-how') won the right to submit offers (Google translation; original French version) when the government takes public requests for submissions to replace its desktop operating systems and office suites. This opens the possibility in the future of replacing Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office in favor of Linux and OpenOffice.org, or any other operating system and office productivity suite. In his judgment, the magistrate said that the government acted illegally when it discarded the proposal of Savoir Faire Linux for replacing Windows XP with a Linux distribution."
If the government of Quebec wants to upgrade their AutoCad 2000 license to AutoCad 2010 licenses, do they have to accept bids from people who want to sell them the free software program "Bricscad" running under Wine?
I know this is a linux-crowd. But do we have to be that stupid, as to pretend that a wholesale substitution should be acceptable in government bid-spec agreements?
The government of quebec's argument (an office 2003 to 2007, xp to vista) UPGRADE is not a bid-spec for a complete wholesale exchange of all their software and systems for one that is not compatible with all the other software in their list. What office do you know that runs on windows that uses less than a few dozen Windows applications that are not available on linux?
So we get vmware, and install Windows in a VM? Seriously people.
I agree that the government should be considering extracting itself from the control of the "multinationals" as google-translate in TFA renders it. Microsoft's hegemony must be removed from government and public offices, if our governments are to be free of the baleful influence of these mega-vendors. (Apple would be no better in its stead, and I agree that an open source tools approach, built around Open Office should be better for any government in the long run. However, the transition could provide a whole host of excuses, at least, and paralyze most already nearly-useless government offices. Who wants their already slow tedious beauracracy to be complaing that they can't do anything now, because they are too busy trying to figure out how to fix up their stupid excel spreadsheets to work in OO calc.)
W
More like it helps promote stupidity when spending taxpayer money. Someone can put in a bid for "Linux" that's cheaper then "Vista", by the whole free thing. They'll leave out the part where it involves changing an entire infrastructure that is based around Windows, retraining the IT staff that all know how to administer/support/develop for Windows, and users who know how to use Windows. Not to mention the cost surrounding applications and migration.
This type of nonsense happens all the time in other areas. They'll take the lowest bid because by law they're supposed to, even though they know that bid is from a disreputable vendor that will wind up delivering an inferior product late and over-budget. When you take decision making ability out of the process, you might cut down on potential corruption, but you increase the likelihood of BS bids winning.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
So every time the government needs to replace a number of desktops, it also has to consider replacing the entire IT infrastructure?