Response to the Federal govt RFI

Andrej Marjan amarjan-e+AXbWqSrlAAvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org
Wed Feb 18 21:27:55 UTC 2009


On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 08:55:08AM -0500, bob 295 wrote:

> I was involved with Elections Canada in the past number of elections as an 
> automation coordinator.    That software is a classic example of a vendor 
> (IBM) solution not fitting the needs of the customer (EC),  but the customer 
> not having the ability make any changes.     Unfortunately when we floated 
> the possibility of the Canadian Government creating an open source project to 
> generate the next generation of EC software,  we ran square up against what I 
> would call the "need to have someone to sue should something go wrong" 
> mentality.

I think this nails it on the head and explains why the RFI lumps
together freeware and Free Software.

>From the lawyers' perspective, there's well established law, precedent,
whatever that governs the exchange of software for money. This includes
things like:

- warranties
- support 
- LIABILITY -- this one is huge, governments want vendors to indemnify
  them against claims of IP violations by 3rd parties for use of vendor
  software. Think SCO. For instance IBM's WebSphere uses all kinds of
  open source software internally but IBM will protect its paying
  clients from lawsuits by others claiming the use of, say, Apache or
  OpenLDAP infringes on their IP rights.

There's also not having to rely on internal staff who aren't trusted as
much as external vendors.
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