On 22 Nov 2005, at 21:26, Marielle Lange wrote:
David Bovill wrote:
Government contracts do not require that all tools and code used
is open source (I think this would not even be legal).
Unfortunately, this is not clear. I have been in discussion with
the guys of this project: http://eduforge.org/projects/exe/. I
tried to lure them into using revolution to develop open source.
They told me they couldn't because their current contract impose
the exclusive use of open source software and tools.
Did a little checking - interesting project!
Unusual policy / reply though? Even SourceForge is fine with allowing
Revolution based open source projects (I have a couple of such
projects registered but not used as moving to SVN - SourceForge is
very slow).
It's a New Zealand based initiative? Also appears to have nothing
much to do with government funding / contracts? If so it is entirely
up to them how they set their own membership criteria for projects
(law doesn't enter into the picture).
As for government based tenders - I have yet to come across one which
rules out proprietary tools (even in the deliverables) - just an
indicated preference. Admittedly this is mainly UK / EU based. In my
discussions with people / funders with regard to this - there was
some indication that this was because it was considered to fall foul
of anti-competition laws. There was also a strong suggestion that
this was largely in response to very strong Microsoft lobbying at EU
level specifically targeted at minimising the impact of open source
on government contracts.
Nothing really clear here - just gossip - so don't quote me on it.
But i would be interested in any examples of clear government
tenders / explicit policies that do insist on only pure open source
tools being used?
AFAIK this is rarely if ever the case, and if so it comes down to
marketing / lobbying at the level of the jury. How many "open source
zealots" are represented, and how well are we able to communicate
that Revolution can play an important role in effective delivery of
open source strategies / migration in government sectors? Being able
to point to a successful open source project in which Revolution
plays a key development role would swing many of these people.
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