[osol-mktg] Re: OpenSolairis a choice for the government desktop? // Re: [osol-discuss] KDE, GNOME, etc.

[Brian Nitz]

Casper.Dik at Sun.COM wrote:
>> Felix Schulte wrote:
>>     
>>> Having two desktops does not make sense for the customers - and KDE is
>>> the primary government desktop here. Support for KDE will be a
>>> requirement for further contracts as far as I can see from my POV. The
>>> European governments are looking into further ways to save costs and
>>> having the burden of a KDE desktop which is not supported will not
>>> generate bonus points when Sun tries to compete with other open source
>>> solutions here. Sun Germany will likely hit tendering procedures where
>>> KDE is a REQUIREMENT very soon and IMO there needs to be a solution
>>> for this problem ASAP as it will affect the sales on the whole
>>> European continent.
>>>       
>> Why is the requirement KDE?   Is the requirement for specific functionality
>> that GNOME doesn't offer?   Or do they specify a desktop whose name is
>> spelled exactly "KDE"?
>>     
>
>
> That would appear to be on the wrong side of the law governing European tenders
> of any kind.
>   
Exactly.  Sole source tenders for publicly funded software projects are 
evil and in many cases illegal.  It doesn't matter whether the RFP 
favors Microsoft, linux, a specific distribution or a specific desktop, 
it eventually transfers public tax money via a non-competitive process 
which favors monopolies.    Alternative vendors and communities must 
become involved early in procurement in order to make the advantages of 
alternatives known.  If I see a tender specifying "KDE" or "SuSE" for a 
new desktop project I would suggest more detail in the tender such as:

   -  Accessibility (A11Y) support shall...
   -  Internationalization Localization support (i18n/L10n) should be 
available for the following...
   -  Documentation should be complete and available in (X) languages.

I'm sure there are other areas where GNOME has an advantage over KDE.  I 
hope Opensolaris distributions based on KDE, Looking glass and other 
open source desktops become available but if everyone played by the 
rules and followed proper procurement directives, GNOME would have a 
decent chance of winning government desktops.

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