Quebec judge confuses 'tech upgrade' with 'rip and replace'
Court's technical ignorance shows in ruling that government must consider adopting Linux when upgrading Windows
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Is ripping and replacing your existing operating systems and applications worth considering as an alternative to upgrading what you already have and want to keep using? A Superior Court judge in Quebec apparently believes so, having ruled that the Quebec government should have considered alternatives such as Linux when upgrading to newer versions of Microsoft Windows and Office.
According to reports, Savoir Faire, an open source software firm in Montreal, sued the Quebec government in 2008 after the province's procurement agency spent $686,000 ($720,000 in Canadian loonies) migrating 800 computers to Windows Vista and Office 2007. Under the law, the government is required to seriously consider alternatives on expenditures exceeding $24,000 ($25,000 Canadian), according to the ruling Superior Court judge.
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The court wasn't swayed by a couple of the government's reasons for dismissing alternatives to Microsoft. Among those arguments: The government said it wasn't investing in new software, which would have required the broad search for alternatives. Rather, it was upgrading existing software. Second, the government maintained that moving users from familiar Microsoft platforms to a new one would have incurred additional training expenses.
Not surprisingly, Savoir Faire president Cyrille Beraud celebrated the ruling as a "historic judgment" that "breaks multinationals' stranglehold on information systems." The judge did not rule that the Quebec government had to start over, as the Microsoft software has already been installed; the government only has to pay Savoire Faire's legal fees.
