From fb028173075fafbbcfdf4cc2c12bafdde867d9c6 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: hugo Date: Wed, 5 Feb 2014 17:17:47 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] grid fixing svn path=/trunk/; revision=27903 --- .../policy/eu/freedomtocompete.en.xhtml | 55 ++++++++++--------- 1 file changed, 28 insertions(+), 27 deletions(-) diff --git a/activities/policy/eu/freedomtocompete.en.xhtml b/activities/policy/eu/freedomtocompete.en.xhtml index 8b18438327..f5ab8460cf 100644 --- a/activities/policy/eu/freedomtocompete.en.xhtml +++ b/activities/policy/eu/freedomtocompete.en.xhtml @@ -233,7 +233,7 @@ EC letter from Dec 10th, 2010 GNU/Linux or BSD systems.

-
+

(b) DIGIT'S Data Centre manages more than 800 OSS web servers.

@@ -257,7 +257,8 @@ EC letter from Dec 10th, 2010 Govemment, e-Inclusion and e-Health)

-

+

+

We are fully aware of these websites, and appreciate their usefulness to many European public bodies. However, we regret that the Commission is not making greater efforts towards availing @@ -270,17 +271,15 @@ EC letter from Dec 10th, 2010 direction, the Commission's own guidelines and recommendations would ultimately be futile.

- -

+

The SACHA II call for tender was designed in a way that made it very hard, if not impossible, for Free Software companies to offer their products and services:

-

+

The call for tender includes a long list of specific products, rather than a set of functional specifications. While formulations such as

-

Product names and trademarks: Whenever the tendering specifications mention a specific product name or trademark @@ -289,9 +288,8 @@ EC letter from Dec 10th, 2010 referring to that product or its equivalent. (SACHA II Annex 6 : 5.1.4.)

-
-

+

may or may not satisfy the letter of the law, they are certainly not conducive to competitive bidding by a large number of providers of different programs. This issue was at the heart of the European @@ -300,7 +298,7 @@ EC letter from Dec 10th, 2010 specifying "Intel or equivalent" processors (see Press release IP/04/1210, October 13, 2004)

-

+

Annex 4 of the tendering specifications lists 251 named software products (not counting different varieties of those products). We are surprised that DIGIT found itself unable to @@ -308,25 +306,26 @@ EC letter from Dec 10th, 2010 for any of these products without resorting to product names and trademarks.

-

+

DIGIT issued a comprehensive call for tender for a very large and diverse set of programs. If the Commission had truly wanted to acquire Free Software and related services, an appropriate approach would have been to tender a number of smaller, more specific contracts. European SMEs would have found it much easier to bid for such contracts.

-

+

We would appreciate if the European Commission could inform us how spending under the SACHA II contract will be allotted among the different software products and services listed in the the call for tender. Which percentage of spending under this contract will go towards the purchase of Free Software and related services?

-

+

Would the Commission also be able to inform us how many bids were received in total? This would be an interesting indication of the number of companies who felt that they were in a position to successfully bid for this contract.

+
@@ -340,7 +339,8 @@ EC letter from Dec 10th, 2010 measures.

-

+

+

Our press release assumes no such thing. FSFE maintains that Open Standards can be implemented in both Free and proprietary software. Open Standards, which do not @@ -348,11 +348,11 @@ EC letter from Dec 10th, 2010 software model, offer freedom from vendor lock-in and open up the software market to innovation and competition.

-

+

We very much appreciate your request for input, and will avail ourselves of this opportunity whenever necessary.

-

+

The important question is rather whether European institutions are accessible to citizens regardless of the type of software they choose to use. A notable failing, for example, is the fact that @@ -362,12 +362,12 @@ EC letter from Dec 10th, 2010 in the EU's decision making process. We would welcome DIGIT's help in removing this obstacle to democratic participation.

-

+

We would also note that the Commission maintains a preference for proprietary document formats, and staff are still unable to receive documents in .odf formats without going through central translation, despite this having been established as a formal ISO standard. -

+

@@ -381,19 +381,20 @@ EC letter from Dec 10th, 2010 comments about the process.

-

+

+

Our press release merely states that both this procurement and the revision of the European Interoperability Framework are coordinated by DIGIT.

-

+

We are looking forward to the impending publication of the European Interoperability Framework, and, despite indications to the contrary , remain hopeful that it will provide at least the same level of leadership for the European public sector as the original version where Open Standards are concerned. -

+

@@ -404,35 +405,35 @@ EC letter from Dec 10th, 2010 would have been more balanced.

-

+

+

I am pleased to inform you that rather than basing our public intervention merely on articles in the press, we followed FSFE's customary best practice of going to the source and, in this case, investing considerable amounts of time into studying the publicly available documents related to this procurement.

-

+

We regret that the SACHA II contract itself has not been published. If the contract were to be made publicly available, FSFE and other European citizens who care about the way in which their taxes are invested and their institutions conduct their business would be able to verify that this agreement is truly in their best interest.

- -

- The same applies for other contracts concluded by the Commission + +

The same applies for other contracts concluded by the Commission regarding the acquisition of software, such as the EUR 49 million framework contract for Microsoft software and services awarded to Fujitsu Siemens on January 10, 2008.

-

+

Our goal is to increase the use of Free Software and Open Standards in all parts of the European public sector. This includes opening up public procurement to participation by Free Software companies. FSFE will be happy to work with DIGIT and other parts of the European Commission in order to support competition, choice and freedom in the European software market. -

+