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Not So Neutral Government Software Procurement
Posted by Paul Szynol on Sunday, December 01 @ 17:00:23 EST OpenSource
The Initiative for Software Choice claims to be "a global initiative promoting neutral government procurement, standards and public R&D policies for software". In practice, though, the group clearly wants to influence government selection, and has taken a vehement stance against open source software in particular.

Here is an excerpt from a recent report.

Across the globe, more than two-dozen countries have proposed nearly 70 "preference" proposals . . . many of which seek to automatically create a preference for open source software (OSS) over equally viable hybrid or proprietary offerings. These policies strip customer choice from the selection process, greatly harming the software industry as a whole.
The report also makes a not-so-subtle allusion to the "viral nature of some OSS licenses, such as the GNU General Public License"; and, as ZDNet reports, the organization has argued that the Pentagon should not openly promote the use of open source software.

Innovation or ROI?

The report laments the possible loss of access to innovation: if open source were the category of software preferred by governments, the report says, "government agencies would be . . . disadvantaged, being denied access to the software innovations created by commercial software companies."

In the same paragraph, however, the report mentions that the selection of OSS as the preferred category of software "would also potentially foreclose the largely proprietary-based IT industry from billions of dollars in federal marketplace business."

And, indeed, there is a lot of money involved. The proposed IT budget for fiscal 2003 is $52 billion--8 percent of which, according to Richard Clarke, the president’s cybersecurity adviser, will go to information security.

The CIA, too, has been investing in tech firms. In 1999, the Agency started a venture capital firm called In-Q-Tel--in Silicon Valley. The firm's purpose is "to identify and invest in cutting-edge information technology solutions that serve U.S. national security interests." According to In-Q-Tel Chief Executive's Gilman Louie, "[h]alf of the 10 tech companies that went public this year had major government contracts", Mercury News reports.

If open source were to dominate the government's IT strategy, a significant percentage of these funds would not make their way into the hands of established -- or new -- corporations.

The organization's web site (which, incidentally, uses ASP) lists the initiative's members here. The list includes Cisco, Intel and Microsoft.

 
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Bruce Perens' (Score: 1)
by NZheretic on Sunday, December 01 @ 22:37:07 EST
(User Info | Send a Message)
Check out Sincere Choice
Sincere Choice vs. "Software Choice" The Initiative for Software Choice , not to be confused with Sincere Choice, is an effort organized under CompTIA and (we believe) driven by Microsoft. Although they appear to be promoting similar goals to ours, their policies are written to maintain an unfair bias for proprietary software in the market. We analyze their statements in The Initiative for Software Choice Decomposed


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Re: Not So Neutral Government Software Procurement (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Monday, December 02 @ 14:51:37 EST
If they believe in letting consumers have the right to use whatever software they want to use for whatever purpose, then why does this Software Choice Initiative try thier best to block governments(which are basically consumers) from using whatever they want?

If the government were to wholesale switch over to OSS, it would not effect ordinary user's ability to choose, it would simply effect what the gov't workers use on thier work computers and servers(sort of like many normal people at work).

What the Software Choice Initiative seems to be trying to do IMO(especially since Microsoft and Cisco, two companies who stand to lose ALOT from OSS, are part of it), is to limit choice, they seem to be over promoting proprietary software, and harping common MS FUD like the GPL is 'viral' or that OSS is 'bad for the economy'.


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