[Linux-aus] And on the other hand...

[Con Zymaris]

On Tue, Jul 22, 2003 at 02:25:01PM +0800, Leon Brooks wrote:
> 
> http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,6788724%255E15306,00.html
> 
>     THE Australian Democrats are trying to embarrass governments
>     into supporting legislation mandating open source software,
>     by asking questions in parliament about how much departments
>     spend on Microsoft products.
> 
>     And Democrats in NSW, the ACT and federal parliament are
>     drafting open source preference legislation along the lines
>     of upper house member Ian Gilfillan's Bill in South Australia,
>     as part of a campaign to lift the profile of the software. 
> 
>     SA Democrat upper house member Mr Gilfillan has led the way
>     with his private member's Bill. 
> 
>     NSW Democrats MLC Arthur Chesterfield-Evans has questions on
>     notice with all state ministers requiring them to reveal
>     their departments' expenditure on Microsoft products, and is
>     planning to introduce his own private member's Bill. 
> 
>     "Bill Gates is the richest man in the world and we're making
>     a hefty contribution," he said.
> 
>     "What the country doesn't need is to be tied into a
>     profit-maximising licensing system, and the way to combat
>     that is to get government to break out of the paradigm." 
> 
>     Dr Chesterfield-Evans said his legislation - modelled on that
>     of Mr Gilfillan - would encourage competition. 
> 
>     "I've linked it to the idea of open market competition," he
>     said. "Under the National Competition Policy, governments
>     should follow procedures that allow competition.
> 
> ...and so on...

problem is, the Democrats do not control any of the state's IT budgets...

-- 
_____________________________________________________________________________
Con Zymaris <conz at cyber.com.au> Level 4, 10 Queen St, Melbourne 03 9621 2377 
Cybersource: Unix/Linux, TCP/IP and Web App. Development  www.cyber.com.au