The EU requires government acquisitions to be publicly announced so that private companies can make offers that the government then must choose from (not freely, mind you, but following some “objective” metrics).
Even though this might sound great to some, it has the downside of promoting commercial services and vendor lock-in up to the point that even if a free and open source alternative exists, it cannot be used unless there also exists some commercial entity behind it that can sell the software and support for it in accordance with the established metrics.
This might be one of the biggest hurdles in the way for Linux adoption, since anyone can claim to do lots of great stuff with SUPERproprietarySOFTWARETM and then hold critical services, like healthcare mentioned elsewhere, hostage to their failure to deliver on promises and future bad support.
Even more important, a huge multinational like Microsoft can be forced in court to provide the support they sell under threat of legal action that would cripple their profitability in the region. Olafs computer service will just turn its pockets inside out, flip around the shingle to closed and leave the national drivers license agency in a lurch.
On some level the companies that sell and support systems government relies on have to be treated as nation states themselves in order to maintain normalcy, which both parties “want”.
I in general very much support requiring paying for support. I.e. SLAs with consequences for not meeting targets support.
At least for software/hardware running things that can’t afford indefinite unauthorized access or downtime if left in a vulnerable state. (Some stuff actually can IMHO be like that).
I also think governments should have justify renting software insteading buying it if the money is intended to be an investment of any kind.
The EU requires government acquisitions to be publicly announced so that private companies can make offers that the government then must choose from (not freely, mind you, but following some “objective” metrics).
Even though this might sound great to some, it has the downside of promoting commercial services and vendor lock-in up to the point that even if a free and open source alternative exists, it cannot be used unless there also exists some commercial entity behind it that can sell the software and support for it in accordance with the established metrics.
This might be one of the biggest hurdles in the way for Linux adoption, since anyone can claim to do lots of great stuff with SUPERproprietarySOFTWARETM and then hold critical services, like healthcare mentioned elsewhere, hostage to their failure to deliver on promises and future bad support.
Even more important, a huge multinational like Microsoft can be forced in court to provide the support they sell under threat of legal action that would cripple their profitability in the region. Olafs computer service will just turn its pockets inside out, flip around the shingle to closed and leave the national drivers license agency in a lurch.
On some level the companies that sell and support systems government relies on have to be treated as nation states themselves in order to maintain normalcy, which both parties “want”.
I in general very much support requiring paying for support. I.e. SLAs with consequences for not meeting targets support.
At least for software/hardware running things that can’t afford indefinite unauthorized access or downtime if left in a vulnerable state. (Some stuff actually can IMHO be like that).
I also think governments should have justify renting software insteading buying it if the money is intended to be an investment of any kind.