Red Hat and 17 other technology providers have filed a brief
with the Swiss Federal Administration Court against a Swiss
government's agency's decision to award a 14million-franc contract
to Microsoft without inviting any other bidders.
The Red Hat legal team said the challenge raises important
issues of openness in government and of a level playing field for
open source and other competitors of Microsoft. Red Hat is seeking
a public bidding process that allows for consideration of the
technical and commercial advantages of open source software
products.
The three-year contract covers standardised workstations,
including applications, maintenance, and support. Red Hat said
there was no public bidding process. The Swiss agency justified
this no-bid procedure on the grounds that there was no sufficient
alternative to the Microsoft products.
In 2004 The city of Munich embarked on a
Linux programme withplans to install 14,000 computers in its
public administration with Linux and other open source office
applications.
