Re: [Fsfe-uk] OSS Pol. v2 and other stuff

[Lee Braiden]

On Friday 10 Sep 2004 11:14, graham wrote:
> Lee Braiden wrote:
> I imagine all the talk about paying attention to open source in
> procurement policies is now so much hot air (at national level, at
> least)

Yes, that's a worry of mine, too.

I know of one case in Northern Ireland, where a high-profile tender was under 
consideration, and, despite the very high relative performance of the company 
in question, they were told that they had "said all the right things", but 
they failed to mention "one word: Microsoft" :(  And I suspect this is 
because their tender mentioned that they were keeping up to date with the 
government's own OSS efforts!  This, in a contract that had already been 
specified in full, with no mention of Microsoft, and no reason to require it 
except perhaps laziness or fear of the unknown, on the part of government IT 
staff.

Unfortunately, I know this by word of mouth from the people involved in a 
closed meeting, so I can't really do anything about it without jeopardising 
their position.  Perhaps more transparancy would help there, but I suspect 
this sort of conversation will go on for quite some time behind closed doors, 
unless it's possible to change the attitudes and priorities that drive 
government IT decisions.

-- 
Lee Braiden