The NSA-friendly back doors chosen politically, barring technical considerations and assessment

Summary: Forced disclosure of administrative documents in France reveals a secret Microsoft deal which is purely political and not technical

FOLLOWING our coverage of Microsoft and spooks collaborating (two months before the NSA leaks began), APRIL (software freedom advocacy group in France) sent us what it called a "[f]ollowup on "Open Bar" contract between Microsoft and French ministry of Defence," stating:

you wrote a few months ago an article about the "Open Bar" contract between Microsoft and French ministry of Defence http://techrights.org/2013/04/21/nato-and-microsoft/.

FYI We published last weeks news documents. These documents show that choosing an Open Bar contract was indeed the result of a political decision which clearly was made before the feasibility and risks studies were being performed.

Read on :

http://www.april.org/en/open-bar-contract-between-microsoft-and-french-ministry-defence-new-documents-support-political-game

This page says: "This framework contract, which was signed without any open call for tender or competitive procedure, granted right of use on some Microsoft products and associated services for the duration of the contract, i.e. four years. It was signed in complete secrecy, despite numerous negative opinions, and was the subject of several leaks to the press."

"Taking advantage of this information, we made two successive requests for administrative documents. The first one obtained a partially usable response. We are now publishing the released documents resulting from the second one."

This is very fascinating and it can give clues as to what happens in other countries. France is generally considered one of the most FOSS-friendly countries in the world when it comes to the public sector (based on Europe-wide assessment from professional assessors it was ranked first). Microsoft's assault on standards, which include ODF, was very interesting in France because then too it involved political corruption and involvement by Nicolas Sarkozy, who was close to Microsoft executives. This led to OOXML apologism and adoption [1, 2],

It is clear that Microsoft is intimidated (poor Microsoft!) if not deeply shocked to find the French police moving to GNU/Linux. Other proprietary software vendors are becoming "legacy vendors" as some call them [1] and as proprietary systems show massive failures in the British public sector, e.g. [2], we are likely to see more nations embracing Free/libre software (new example in [3,4]), with ODF leading the way in many cases (LibreOffice gets more support [5,6] and development effort [7]). Speaking of the UK, things change here for the better and just yesterday the UK Home Office became a client of the company I work for. ⬆

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Does Open Source's Rise Spell The End Of Traditional Software Vendors?

   
   
   It's clear that open source is shaking up the technology industry. What isn't yet clear is how this impacts legacy vendors.





2. Abandoned NHS IT system has cost €£10bn so far

   Richard Bacon, a Conservative member of the committee, said the report was further evidence of a "systemic failure" in the government's ability to draw up and manage large IT contracts. "This saga is one of the worst and most expensive contracting fiascos in the history of the public sector.





3. Finland Gets Free/Libre Open Source Software

4. Open source search engine for Finnish libraries and museums

   A recently unveiled search engine for accessing the collections of Finland's archives, libraries and museums was built on open source, announces the country's National Library. "The advantage of open source is that it enables organisations to work together to develop a system without limits, contracts or procedures." The engine itself is also made publicly available.





5. Studio Storti joins The Document Foundation Advisory Board to Complement the Launch of the LibreOffice Division

   The Document Foundation (TDF) announces that Studio Storti is now a member of its Advisory Board. Studio Storti is the largest provider of open source solutions to the Italian Public Administration, and is launching a LibreOffice Division to support migrations from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice.





6. CloudOn joins The Document Foundation Advisory Board to Accelerate LibreOffice Availability on Mobile Devices





7. LibreOffice 4.1.2 RC2 Finally Fixes the TIFF Import