Re: [Fsfe-uk] microsoft-dependent free software

[Paul Tansom]

On Fri, 2005-04-01 at 00:43 +0100, Robin Green wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 31, 2005 at 11:03:24PM +0100, Graham Seaman wrote:
> > 
> > http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/31/ms_kingston_epayments/
> > 
> > The story pretty much says it all. Unfortunately it seems like a very
> > clever move on their part to me.
> 
> In the short term it may be clever. In the longer term, it's introducing
> local government to the savings and flexibility that can result from a
> "bazaar-style" (i.e. typical free software) development model. Sooner or
> later, they'll figure out that they can do the same thing for less money
> and with more flexibility, by basing both the apps and the portal on free
> software. I can't help thinking that Microsoft is shooting itself in
> the foot here! :)

Maybe, maybe not. What they are doing is encouraging local government to
lock itself even tighter into a single vendor setup with proprietary
software. This means that it is an even bigger piece of work to change -
both since all the 'shared' software is dependent on the Microsoft
infrastructure this will have to be extensively rewritten in order to
facilitate any migration away from Microsoft. If you increase the impact
of any migration the likelihood of that migration decreases. Very much
the lock-in concept that brought the proprietary Unix world to where it
is - and part of the original attraction of PCs, DOS, etc. was that you
were able to choose your vendor - ironic really!

-- 
Paul Tansom | Aptanet Ltd. | http://www.aptanet.com/