http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/08/27/tech-quebec.html
Quebec government sued for buying Microsoft software
Facil wants ban on regulatory loophole that lets Quebec purchase
proprietary software
Last Updated: Wednesday, August 27, 2008 | 6:58 PM ET Comments0Recommend0
By Peter Nowak, CBC News
Quebec's open-source software association is suing the provincial
government, saying it is giving preferential treatment to Microsoft Corp.
by buying the company's products rather than using free alternatives.
The lawsuit by Facil was lodged with the Quebec Superior Court on July 15
and made public on Wednesday. In it, the group says the provincial
government has refused to entertain competing bids from all software
providers, opting instead to supply public-sector departments with
products bought from proprietary vendors such as Microsoft and Oracle
Corp.
Government buyers are using an exception in provincial law that allows
them to buy directly from a proprietary vendor when there are no options
available, but Facil said that loophole is being abused and goes against
other legal requirements to buy locally.
"It shouldn't be the rule," Facil president Mathieu Lutfy told CBC News.
"It goes against the public markets policy of the government, which
requires them to stimulate competition and look for local alternatives.
It's really an absurdity."
Between February and June, the Quebec government spent $25 million on
software from Microsoft, Facil said. The group estimates the government is
spending more than $80 million a year on licences for Microsoft's Windows
Vista operating system alone.[...]
--
Alayne McGregor
alayne at twobikes.ottawa.on.ca
"Only the rigor and discipline of the delimited can create art. Musicologists considering
Bach, who worked within desperately restrictive format, will concur as will those
considering the sonata form. The sonnet and the eight-bar chorus of almost all popular song
and operetta give similar testimony. It was the very restraint with which science fiction
was cloaked from the outset which gave the genre its discipline and force." -- Barry Malzberg
--
OCLUG general discussion list
[email protected]
http://oclug.on.ca/mailman/listinfo/oclug
lmpx.com only provides a reader for public news (NNTP) servers. It is not
affiliated with the servers or forums shown here and is not responsible for
the content of articles, which is written by their respective authors.