Taiwan en faveur du libre-choix

Government says all new PCs must be Linux-friendly
By Jason Tan
STAFF REPORTER
Saturday, Jun 03, 2006,Page 1

The government-run Central Trust of China has mandated for the first time
that all desktop computers purchased from now on must be Linux-compatible,
demonstrating the government's desire to widen the nation's usage of open
source software.

"It is a global trend that Linux is gaining wider adoption due to its
lower costs and better adaptability," Mike Lin, a consultant at the Taipei
Computer Association (TCA), told the Taipei Times yesterday.

Taipei-based Central Trust -- whose operations include banking, insurance,
trade and warehousing -- is in charge of purchasing computers and other
equipment for government agencies and schools.

Central Trust commissioned TCA to run compatibility tests on desktop PCs
manufactured by bidding vendors to ensure their products are able to
operate on the Linux system.

The new requirement is in effect as of the 11th tender, which began last
month and runs through September, according to a report in the
Chinese-language Economic Daily yesterday.

About 120,000 desktops will be procured during the 11th and 12th tenders,
the report said.

"In the past, some of the procured computers did not support Linux,
therefore this new mandate signifies the government's push to reduce
reliance on the Windows operating system," Lin said.

Thirty-three desktop models from hardware vendors including Acer, Asustek,
Lenovo and Hewlett-Packard Taiwan, were certified Linux-compatible, while
four models each from Gigabyte Technology and Synnex Technology
International were still under evaluation, according to the newspaper report.

In the legislative session held late last year, legislators reached an
additional consensus that there should be a 25 percent cut of procurement
budget on Microsoft's products across all government agencies, citing that
the solutions — which monopolize the market — are too expensive. In
response, Microsoft Taiwan Corp yesterday said that it respected the
government's decision for the Linux inclusion into desktops, as long as
the market is competing on a fair ground.

“Consumers are free to choose their preferred products, and will find ours
more user friendly,” said Vincent Shih, a legal director at Microsoft Taiwan.

He added that prices of the company’s solutions here are not higher than
those selling in other countries.

“As a whole, the total deployment costs of open source do not necessarily
lower than Windows’. We will continue to negotiate the rulings with
legislators,” he added.

http://www.knowprose.com/node/15302

Dommage qu'on ait pas de gouvernements, juste des représentants de
l'industrie, ici.