On Mon, Oct 13, 2003 at 06:57:49PM +0200, Oded Arbel wrote:
> On Monday 13 October 2003 18:09, Amichai Rotman wrote:
>
> First thing I like to protest ...
Seconded. However I do appreciate triggering this thread as well as
the followups about what the contents of the URL is.
> And now for the real issue:
> I don't care. really, I couldn't care less about what office suit the
> government purchases. specificly as this is such a lowly percentage of the
> total goverment expenditure on technology, but also because I think that
> Microsoft deserve to be able to do buisness and the government is a valid
> customer.
> As long as all out going communications between the government and the public
> is based on open standards and can be accessed using free software - all of
> this can be achieved w/ MS software tools - I don't realy care who is the
> supplier of software tools for the government. all this, assuming of course
> that the government purchases the best software for the least money, but this
> is really OT for Linux-IL.
>
Your general attitude sounds to me too naive because you seem to
effectively ignore the role of the government in the economy. It seems
to me that you _tend_ to think that the government is just one more
powerful player in a sophisticated market. However I believe that this
can never be the case because making the government an just one more
powerful player in a sophisticated market is a contradiction to the
leading and influencing role of a government. One can not rule if he
don't have the power to determine future pathes (LEHATVOT DRACHIM
ATIDIOT). I also believe that this applies to any country, not just
Israel.
In particular, from the government point of view, `the best software
for the least money' is much less defined then for a any other player of
the economy. For example, would it purchase MS Word and thus motivate MS
to furthere invest in RTL languges support or would it use a new Word
processor for free but pays for the creation of a new Linux market?
And IMHO this is on topic because not recognizing the unique and
leading role of the government in the economy in general, and in the
Linux market in particular, is of interest to this list.
--
Shaul Karl, shaulk @ actcom . net . il
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