Liko, Like you, reality is a friend of mine. Just like they are free to hire and fire, private sector CEOs, without consulting, are at liberty procure whatever they feel or believe will increase shareholders return (aka bottom line) But unfortunately, government's 'shareholders' are a different lot. Government would be acting as an agent of proprietary software monopolization(1) which negates innovation aspirations of Vision 2030. It would also be creating barriers to new expression through new software and solutions creativity. Furthermore, hardware supplied with pre-installed software(2) defeats competitive supply of goods and services intentions of the Act(3) and considering also stated government objectives of efficient utilization of taxes in public service delivery. If anything, our law should compel all software vendors to disclose whatever goes on behind all "closed" software(the source code and documentation). The last thing *any* government needs are backdoors calling home:) References: (1) “When governments become agents of Monopolization,” Georg Greve, President of the Free Software Foundation, <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnBYQkMLZ64> (2) "The European Union's decision to force Microsoft to unbundle its media software from Windows could constitute a legal precedent that will affect the company's future products." <http://news.cnet.com/Ruling-could-be-key-to-Microsofts-future/2100-1014_3-5177521.html> (3)"EU think-tank floats OS bundling ban"<http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2199378/eu-think-tank-floats-bundling> --- On Tue, 9/9/08, Liko Agosta <likoa@verviant.com> wrote:
From: Liko Agosta <likoa@verviant.com> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Software procurement in kenya To: alex.gakuru@yahoo.com Cc: kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke Date: Tuesday, September 9, 2008, 1:20 PM Evans,
That law should be changed :)
If a government agency has already invested in some technology stack, they should have the right to say they want a solution that ran's on that technology stack ....lets says Microsoft SQL Server ..
Why ... The license for SQL server will be a sunk cost at that point and getting different technology is making a bigger financial commitment and raising project risk .... also .. if the customers programmers/admins know C# and SQL Server or Websphere and DB2, the client has the right to pick that platform ...
We have ran into this with our clients. Whenever we are doing project discovery, we will find out which technologies they currently have/support ... if a client has SQL Server, we will typical ask for usage reports for that SQL server box and in most cases, we have been able to save money by "adding to" their existing infrastructure ... or tuning their existing infrastructure to take more load.
Many organizations we have worked with tend to buy a servers/software licenses for each project ... we advice against this and are usually for consolidation and better management. That way a 4 CPU license for SQL Server Enterprise Edition (approx USD 80,000) will be apportioned to the 20 systems or projects that will use a well tuned 4CPU SQL server ....
So .. good intentions... bad law ... why enforce or spend time on it
My 2 cents
Liko Agosta, CEO Verviant Consulting Services.
www.verviant.com Phone : 1-919-341-1820 Fax : 1-978-268-8403 Toll Free: 1-866-551-4935 Pager: 9193891551@txt.att.net
-----Original Message----- From: kictanet-bounces+likoa=verviant.com@lists.kictanet.or.ke [mailto:kictanet-bounces+likoa=verviant.com@lists.kictanet.or.ke] On Behalf Of Evans Ikua Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2008 1:34 PM To: Liko Agosta Cc: kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke Subject: [kictanet] Software procurement in kenya
Interesting what Google can come up with:
http://www.linuxworld.com/news/2008/052308-kenya-linux-group-challenges-proc urement.html?fsrc=rss-linux-news
We finally got to meet with the PPOA on Friday, 5th September. We had a very fruitful discussion on the Public Procurement and Disposal Act 2005, whose provisions are being ignored by Government procurement agents:
https://ict-innovation.fossfa.net/taxonomy/blog-tags/kenya
This good law stipulates that procuring agents should not mention any trade marks, companies or product names when requesting for
quotations. They are required to just give the specs of what they need to accomplish. But how many times do we see these RFQs with brand names such as Microsoft *?. This has got to stop and nobody has any excuse to break the law with impunity.
We will be putting details of the proceedings on our website soon, and also in the media.
-- Evans Ikua Linux Professional Association of Kenya Tel: +254-20-2250381, Cell: +254-722 955 831 Eagle House, 2nd Floor Kimathi Street, Opp. Corner House www.lpakenya.org
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