LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Rhett Kipps <rhett@rhett.auzit.net>
  To  : David Lloyd <dlloyd@microbits.com.au>
  Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 17:44:36 +1000

Re: AFR: No mandate on open source, says Qld

(Sorry if this response is a bit late... Haven't read my email in a 
while =))


Back last year, I visited Microsoft as part of a QLD government 
sponsered scholarship to recognise the achievements of ICT students. 
 The award. an 8 day residentual program, involved industry visits, 
workshops, and the ability to meet other IT minded people both at school 
and in business.

During this trip, Microsoft detailed its agreement with the QLD 
government, as far as licensing and support goes.  There is a support 
agreement in place, offering the government a set number of hours of 
support per year, and possibly unlimited access to the Microsoft 
software collection?  I remember correctly, Microsoft is charging the 
QLD Govt a set licensing/support fee for any government computer. 
 Regardless of what operating system it is running.

 From this meeting, I don't think there's any chance the QLD Government 
will be changing to Open Source for a while to come.  I don't think they 
feel open source has much to offer them.



~Rhett


David Lloyd wrote:

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>
>Begin forwarded message:
>
>Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2003 16:06:05 +1000
>From: Con Zymaris <conz@cyber.com.au>
>To: talk@auug.org.au, linux-aus@linux.org.au
>Cc: osv <osv-list@lists.osv.org.au>
>Subject: [osv-list] AFR: No mandate on open source, says Qld
>
>
>
>Read it and weep ;-)
>
>http://afr.com/premium/articles/2003/07/21/1058639726733.html
>
> The Queensland  government is reserving judgement on open-source software
>
> and maintaining its use of Microsoft technology instead.
>
> ...
>
> Microsoft is one of the state's key technology partners following a 
> whole-of-government licensing deal that continues through to the middle 
> of next year.
>
> "We've saved a lot of money by entering into the Microsoft agreement as 
> well as eliminating licensing risks," Mr Lucas said.
>
>
>- - - -
>
>If anyone knows how these whole-of-government regimes works, you will know
>that there's no point in trying to get anything bar the status-quo into a
>department. It's too much of an up-hill battle. Therefore, the idea of
>'Sure, we aren't against Open Source; departments are free choose it if it
>has merits.' is junk. There may be a handful of instantiations here and
>there, but not hundreds, nor thousands. And the sheer fact that it's such 
>an uphill battle will eventually allow those in power to claim 'look, we 
>let them decide to select Open Source, and they didn't. Obviously it's 
>just not good enough, and there's no demand amongst the departments.' 
>
>It's also good to see the Minister state, in effect, 'don't look how much 
>we've spent on Microsoft software, look how much of a discount they gave 
>us!'
>
>Nauseating. Simply nauseating.
>
>Are there any QLD'ers around? What's your take on all this?
>
>con
>- -- 
>  
>


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