[Ubuntu-ch] Is the Confederation still giving a preference to Microsoft?

[Simon Schneebeli]

Hello Myriam,

Thanks for this explanation and I'm glad to read the counter-statement 
of the appellants.

Simon

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Simon Schneebeli
078 619 31 18
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Myriam Schweingruber wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 22:31, Simon Schneebeli
> <simon.schneebeli at okko.org> wrote:
>   
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I just read that there was no agreement between the official Swiss
>> software buyers and open source organisations:
>> http://www.efd.admin.ch/00468/index.html?msg-id=30618&lang=fr
>>
>> I was a bit surprised to read that the government "Le service
>> d'adjudication a informé les recourants [...] qu'elle doit en
>> particulier garantir l'égalité de traitement de tous les soumissionnaires".
>>
>> Wow, so why did they not even consider open source solutions? Somehow I
>> have the impression that either me or someone else did not fully
>> understand what "égalité de traitement" means. Can anyone explain me?
>>     
>
> You might have read about the complaint filed by several Swiss firms
> offering Free Software solutions because the legal rules were not
> respected on the federal level. The "égalité de traitement" argument
> is frankly bullshit IMHO, since they made a mistake in the first place
> and never ever did public submissions for license purchases as they
> should have. But the damage is done and they made the license purchase
> and now they try to limit the costs.
>
> Also, it's due to the rather complicated submission process the Swiss
> government uses, which scares away nearly all "PME/KMU" who do not
> actually have somebody dedicated to spot potential submissions, and
> then submit in the appropriate format, and in time. This is all very
> time (and money) intensive, so not that easy to realize for potential
> interesting firms.
>
> It is also to be noted that the official call for submissions have
> very often simply not been made as they should have, but the
> "Informatikdienste/Services Informatiques" relied on what they already
> had, without the slightest consideration that they might actually look
> elsewhere or respect the rules and make public submissions. There has
> been public focus recently on another case, since the city (or was it
> canton?) of Bern did decide on solutions without even bothering making
> a call for public submission. I think Theo Schmid has more insight in
> that particular case.
>
> Luckily there is now more public focus on how the tax money is spent
> since there is a parliamentary group who keeps their eyes open on such
> things. Also groups like ch/open, Wilhelm Tux and the FSFE (sorry for
> those I did not list, no wrong intended) try to raise awareness on the
> procedures. Keep in mind that keeping ones eyes on this and raise
> awareness is also quite some work and the more volunteers give a hand,
> the better this can be achieved :)
>
> Hope this answers your question, else you might want to have a look at
> the relevant pages on the following websites:
>
> http://www.digitale-nachhaltigkeit.ch/
> http://www.ch-open.ch/sigs/osswhitepaper/osswhitepaper.pdf
>
> I certainly forgot half of the information here, but I am a bit in a
> hurry here and I think both Mathias Stürmer and Theo Schmid will be
> delighted to give you more details :)
>
>
> Regards, Myriam.
>
>