[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Felix Schulte wrote:
Having two desktops does not make sense for the customers - and KDE is
the primary government desktop here. Support for KDE will be a
requirement for further contracts as far as I can see from my POV. The
European governments are looking into further ways to save costs and
having the burden of a KDE desktop which is not supported will not
generate bonus points when Sun tries to compete with other open source
solutions here. Sun Germany will likely hit tendering procedures where
KDE is a REQUIREMENT very soon and IMO there needs to be a solution
for this problem ASAP as it will affect the sales on the whole
European continent.
Why is the requirement KDE? Is the requirement for specific functionality
that GNOME doesn't offer? Or do they specify a desktop whose name is
spelled exactly "KDE"?
That would appear to be on the wrong side of the law governing European tenders
of any kind.
Exactly. Sole source tenders for publicly funded software projects are
evil and in many cases illegal. It doesn't matter whether the RFP
favors Microsoft, linux, a specific distribution or a specific desktop,
it eventually transfers public tax money via a non-competitive process
which favors monopolies. Alternative vendors and communities must
become involved early in procurement in order to make the advantages of
alternatives known. If I see a tender specifying "KDE" or "SuSE" for a
new desktop project I would suggest more detail in the tender such as:
- Accessibility (A11Y) support shall...
- Internationalization Localization support (i18n/L10n) should be
available for the following...
- Documentation should be complete and available in (X) languages.
I'm sure there are other areas where GNOME has an advantage over KDE. I
hope Opensolaris distributions based on KDE, Looking glass and other
open source desktops become available but if everyone played by the
rules and followed proper procurement directives, GNOME would have a
decent chance of winning government desktops.
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