I haven't yet read the text of for the proposed NY city law, but if it's anything like the current House bill pending in Oregon, I say beware. The Oregon bill is not about getting the government to also consider OSS, it's about getting any rid of any sort of dealings the government might have with private business. A simple reading of the bill reveals that any person that decides to use proprietary software versus open source must, in writing, justify their choice. Choose to use Microsoft Office over OpenOffice? Better be prepared to defend yourself. Want to use MySQL over Oracle's? Feel free, no one's going to bother you. Doesn't matter that the entire existing infrastructure is already based around proprietary systems.
As an OSS developer, I applaud the governments desire to use OSS. An informed decider will choose the best software, whether its OSS or not. But this bill amounts to nothing less than duress.
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I haven't yet read the text of for the proposed NY city law, but if it's anything like the current House bill pending in Oregon, I say beware. The Oregon bill is not about getting the government to also consider OSS, it's about getting any rid of any sort of dealings the government might have with private business. A simple reading of the bill reveals that any person that decides to use proprietary software versus open source must, in writing, justify their choice. Choose to use Microsoft Office over OpenOffice? Better be prepared to defend yourself. Want to use MySQL over Oracle's? Feel free, no one's going to bother you. Doesn't matter that the entire existing infrastructure is already based around proprietary systems. As an OSS developer, I applaud the governments desire to use OSS. An informed decider will choose the best software, whether its OSS or not. But this bill amounts to nothing less than duress.