[ILUG] Director Of Consumer Affairs? O.S.S. Debate

[Enda]

Frank Murphy wrote:
> Would the Director Of C.A.,
>
> have any role in an OSS debate?
>
> Competition can only be good for J. Public.

I think it was raised here on ILUG before, although I can't find it in the
archives, the notion that the public procurement office have of "value for
money in the public service". They have a methodolgy for analysing these
things, and that includes a risk analysis.

Take for instance the 50M spent on eVoting, the risk of them not working as
has been proven is mitigated by the fact that the eVoting hardware platform
can be used in a working solution, and that the bulk of the 50M isn't
entirely wasted.

Propose linux, and the "lack of warranties" associated with it, and they
have to analyse the risk and conclude that should it fail, we dump it, and
implement MS. Which in theory, has to be more expensive than running with an
MS solution from day one, therefore MS offers better value for money,
because the "don't work" scenario will be underwritted by MS.

That makes it hard for linux to replace MS in public procurement issues.
Linux will get in of coure in small budget projects who's spend falls below
the public procurement threshold for analysis, which is why the companies
registration office uses it for example.

The director of consumer affaird will have to follow "public procurement
guidelines" to achieve "value for money in the public service", and under
those guidelines, which aren't flawed, linux fails.

Its a case of asking paid consultants to adopt a "wing and a prayer"
approach through using "unwarranted" software. If its not a "wing and a
prayer" approach, then why don't the vendors offer warranties on what they
sell?

 -Enda.